Crossing the Void
by Rob Rimsill
Summary: It's the Springtime Summoning Ritual... but Louise is only a first year, and doesn't have to worry about that for now. No, she's got much bigger problems. If she's a mage, why does her magic always go wrong whenever someone's watching? Louise's brand of miracles don't come with an instruction manual, and she'd better learn quickly. Halkeginia isn't the only place under threat.
1. Chapter 1 - Creation

At the Tristainian Academy of Magic, the Springtime Summoning Ritual was almost complete. Louise Francoise LeBlanc de la Vallière, like most of the other first-years, was watching from her window.

That was, most of the other first-years were watching from _their_ windows. Not Louise's window. They wouldn't fit into the room, for one thing.

That said, she wasn't alone in the room. Two of Louise's… friends? Acquaintances? Schoolmates? Two people that Louise definitely knew the names of had also come to watch.

"Just think," said Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst, "that'll be us next year." She glanced at Louise, and smirked. "Well, some of us at any rate. Can you do any _real_ magic yet, Vallière?"

"Shut up, Zerbst," said Louise absently. Sure, Kirche was an accomplished fire mage, Triangle-level at fifteen. She didn't have to rub it in, though! "I'm trying to listen to what they're saying."

The student down below had just summoned some kind of dog with pure white fur and blood-red eyes and ears. It chased its tail while the girl finished her 'contract' familiar chant, then accepted a kiss on the top of its head. Professor Colbert congratulated the student and waved the next person up.

The third person in the room looked up from the book she was reading. Louise wasn't actually sure why Tabitha (just 'Tabitha' – maybe Kirche knew her full name but no-one else in first year did) was even here if she wasn't actually going to watch the ritual. Knowing Tabitha, she'd just been dragged along by Kirche and hadn't bothered to protest. "Wind?" she said.

Oh, right. Making distant voices heard was usually a Wind spell. "No, no," Louise said. "I've always had good ears." This was a massive lie, but to her relief neither of the other two girls challenged her on it.

A breeze rolled in through the open window. Kirche shivered. "Yeesh. You'd think the _Springtime_ Summoning Ritual would have better weather. I'm freezing to death here!"

"It's spring, not summer. What's the matter, can't handle proper Tristainian weather?" said Louise acidly. "Just warm yourself up if it's an issue."

"I _could_ do that," said Kirche thoughtfully, "but I think I'd rather have one of the boys do it for me. Maybe that Malicorne guy, he looks snuggly."

Louise's eyebrows shot up in alarm. "Not in my room, you won't!" She produced her wand and flourished it, making a surreptitious gesture with her other hand. Immediately, the temperature in the room rose to nearly uncomfortable levels.

"Sheesh, I was just kidding," Kirche said. "Nice spell, though. I don't think I'd have had as much control as a dot mage."

Louise flapped her cloak to get a bit of airflow going. She was already starting to sweat. "Hmph. Well, thank you. I'm sure you'd have been able to as well if you weren't too busy slutting up the whole of Germania."

"Please. I was, like, nine years old at that point. But since you bring it up, Valliere, maybe _you'd_ be able to actually produce a flame if you let your emotions air once in a while rather than bottling it all up like the rest of you Tristainian prudes! Fire is the element of passion, you know."

"Just because I have a little _decorum_ doesn't mean- hey! Stop taking your clothes off in my room!" Louise hurriedly looked out the window, blushing the same colour as her hair.

Kirche ignored her and continued unbuttoning her blouse. "Well, if you didn't want me to undress, you shouldn't have turned your room into a sauna," she said cheerfully. "Did you never hear the tale of the Sun and the North Wind?"

Louise had. It was a favourite of Fire mages, for obvious reasons – especially when Wind mages were around. "Ugh, whatever. Tabitha, can we get a breeze in here before Zerbst ends up naked on my bed?" Louise asked. She frowned, and blushed. "…again?"

The blue-haired girl obliged, without bothering to look up. A gentle breeze rolled in from the window, and stirred Louise's strawberry-blonde hair.

Down below, the Springtime Summoning Ritual was just about finished, with only a few students left to go. None of them had summoned anything like Louise was looking for – the closest had been a vaguely humanoid shape made of water, which had caught her interest, but Professor Colbert had identified it as just another variant of slime. Still, she supposed it had been a bit of a long shot. None of the older students had a spirit familiar, either. Louise would just have to look elsewhere if she wanted to talk to a spirit.

She looked up from the students and teachers milling around in the courtyard, and gazed into the sky. Despite Kirche's renewed whining, it really was a lovely day.

Certainly much nicer than the day she'd received her magic, three years ago…

* * *

Louise was twelve, and she couldn't find her father.

"Papa!" she cried as she ran through the halls of her family home, eyes blurred with tears. " _Papa!"_

All of a sudden she collided with something that felt like a steel statue underneath a cloth. Louise fell to the floor with a yelp, and glared reproachfully at the object that had _dared_ to get in her way. Who would have put something like that in the corridor- oh. Louise squeaked, and hid her face.

Karin Désirée de la Valliere frowned down at her daughter in confusion. "Louise? Whatever is the matter?" Then she added, "Pick yourself up off the floor, girl, for Brimir's sake."

Louise scrambled to her feet and stood roughly at attention.

"I was looking for Father," she explained.

"So I heard," said Karin. "Why?"

Suddenly her mother's feet became very interesting to Louise. She mumbled, "…sdc tndr…"

"Speak up, Louise," commanded Karin.

"I was scared of the thunder," said Louise, still not looking at her.

Karin raised an eyebrow. "And why did you not want to come to me?" There was no reply, but Karin saw the look of shame on her youngest daughter's face. "I see. Come, girl." She held her hand out, and Louise took it hesitantly.

Louise was pulled over to the window. It was still the evening, but it was dark enough outside that it looked like midnight. Though it was closed, she could still hear the howl of wind rushing past outside – and even the rain, pounding against the ground. Then there was a flash that lit up the estate like daylight – not an actual lightning strike, just in the clouds. Louise waited, feeling sick, for the thunder. The longer she waited, the more unbearable it became, until it arrived with an almighty crash. She flinched, but refused to cry in front of her indomitable mother.

"There, you see?" Karin's voice was softer than usual, and when Louise risked a look she was smiling slightly. "The thunder came, and you are fine. You are _safe_ , little Louise. There's nothing for you to worry about here. I know it can be scary, but you don't have to be frightened."

"Were you ever frightened, mama?" Louise asked without thinking.

"Of thunder? No. The wind and sky held no fear for me since I came into my magic." Karin seemed to realise what she'd said, and winced slightly. You wouldn't be able to tell unless you knew her, but Louise recognised _this_ expression all too well.

She _hated_ being pitied.

Her mother sighed. "It will come, dear. You are my trueborn daughter, after all. You're just a late bloomer. We've _told_ youthis _._ "

Louise nodded, miserably. Her parents _had_ told her this. They'd been telling her since she turned ten and still hadn't shown any sign of magic whatsoever. She didn't believe them any more than she did then. Less, actually.

Most noble children showed at least _some_ talent for magic while growing up. It wasn't a lot – not even enough to really count as a dot mage – but there would be little unconscious displays. Things like oddly powerful sneezes, that blew paper around the room, for a Wind mage. A future Water mage might be almost impossible to dry off after a bath as the water clung to her skin – an Earth mage, on the other hand, would probably still be grubby no matter how many times you scrubbed him. Meanwhile, young Fire mages had worried noble mothers sick for centuries, as they appeared to have a fever no matter how healthy they were.

Every mage showed their magic differently – just like every child was different – but all noble children showed _something_ sooner or later.

It was just much, much later for Louise.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she reconsidered, and asked, "Mama?"

"Yes, Louise?"

"Why do nobles have magic?" This was something that'd been bothering her for a while. She'd played with some of the servant's children – not, like, gardeners and groundskeepers, obviously, but the butlers and housekeepers had a couple of children Louise's age. They seemed, well, just like her. She would never tell anyone, but sometimes Louise felt they'd be better at having magic than she would be.

Her mother sighed. "Because it is our birthright, Louise. Surely Father Lavisse has told you this?"

"Yes, but I don't understand why. Why nobles?"

There was another flash of lightning, but Louise was so focused on her mother that she forgot to flinch. Eventually Karin answered. "I am not a theologian, I am a duchess, and before that I was just a soldier." Louise held in a sarcastic snort. Karin the Heavy Wind had been 'just' a solider in the same way that Albion was 'just' a floating island. Her mother went on. "However, here is how I understand it.

"Nobles are ordained, under God, to wield the building blocks and energies of His creation – in exactly the same way as we are ordained under the Queen to manage her land. And in the same way that we ourselves delegate land to our barons and knights to manage. It is an analogy, and more than analogy – a symbol of the great chain of being, that links all things in one hierarchy.

"Zoologists and botanists know these chains, where the meanest life is connected through hierarchies of predation and symbiosis up to mankind, with nobles at the pinnacle. Alchemists too use them – base earth is transmuted through their processes to refined gold, and finally to orichalcum with the addition of magic. As with the mundane, so with magic; the wild energies of the world transformed and transmuted through the infusion of man's will into something more. This is why the Royal families have always been among our strongest spellcasters: they sit, by divine right, at the very top of the great chain of being – under only God, who is the source and power for all things." Karin looked down at her daughter, and seemed to realise she'd lost Louise along the way.

"If it helps, think of it like this, Louise – by birth, you are closer to Brimir than the commoners are. And thus, you are closer to God. And through God, you may work something of His miracles in His creation."

Well, that made a little more sense. Louise checked, "So I really am better than the commoners after all?"

Her mother's eyes flashed, and Louise knew she'd said the wrong thing. "No! That's entirely the wrong way to think of it, Louise, and don't let me hear you say that again."

"But you _said_ -"

"Those who are truly worthy to wield magic are those with strength – not just magical or political strength, but strength of _character_ too. Strength of _will_. Like all strength, it's only meaningful if applied towards a just end. A tyrant is no true king, no matter how legitimate his rule – likewise, a noble who thinks himself better than the commoners under his care is nothing but a bully. That is why we, the la Vallières, make sure that those we are responsible for are looked after." Karin paused. "That is where your father is now, as a matter of fact."

"Hm?"

"He went out earlier in the day to help reinforce the shelters before this storm came in. It's hard work, and dirty, but your father does it because he knows that part of the reason he has magic is so that he can help to protect the people under his care." Karin smiled fondly. "And, between you and me, I think he likes shifting large rocks around. It makes him feel manly."

Louise giggled.

There was another crash of thunder, but Louise hardly noticed. She hoped her papa got back in before the storm really hit, though…

* * *

Duke Centurion la Vallière did in fact make it back inside the mansion before the roadways were judged impassable. Louise caught him in the entryway, taking his sodden cloak off. It almost looked like he'd fallen in the river, the rain was so heavy – his blond hair was plastered to his head and rainwater dripped off his nose. Still, his smile was bright when he saw his daughter in the hall.

"Louise!" he said cheerfully. "Bit of weather out there, you know how it is."

"You're wet, papa," said Louise, with the air of someone imparting a great secret.

"That I am." Her father took off a boot and tipped the water out of it onto the slowly growing puddle around him. "I don't suppose your sister is around, is she?"

"Which one?" He probably meant Eléonore, since she was a water mage, but Louise asked anyway in hopes that she _wouldn't_ have to go and find her terrifying eldest sister.

The Duke's face lit up in a great big grin. "Oh, Cattleya's home already? Usually her hunting trips last a lot longer than this."

Louise knew what Cattleya would say to this, so she said it for her. "They're _not_ hunting trips, papa, they're-"

"Yes, I know, it's her research job. Still, she goes and stalks some poor animal, captures it and tells it they're friends, then brings it home and dresses it up in ribbons and bows. At least when you shoot the damn things it's over quickly." He seemed to remember something, and frowned. "I hope she didn't travel in all this-" he gestured outside, "-I told her she didn't have to come all this way if she wasn't feeling up to it. One of these days I'm going to just keep her in this house, I swear. Did she seem fine? Not ill?" he asked Louise.

Louise sighed. "Yes, papa, she's fine, she's just resting in her room. Honestly, you're so overprotective all the time."

"That's a big word for a five-year-old."

" _Papa!_ I am _twelve!_ " squealed Louise, outraged.

Her father squinted at her. "Nope, can't be. You're still my tiny youngest girl, don't go growing up while I'm not looking." He waved a finger at her. "And I don't see you going to find Eléonore, young lady."

"Hmph!" Louise tossed her head and stomped off. She called back over her shoulder, "Well, maybe I'll just find mother on the way and tell her you're dripping all over the house!"

Duke de la Vallière's teasing expression vanished in an instant. "Erk! Ah, Louise, wait-!"

* * *

For the first time in – gosh, months, probably – the entire la Vallière family was seated around the dinner table. Usually dinner was a refined, formal affair, with talking kept to a minimum. Tonight, however, Duke de la Vallière was talking with his wife about the preparations he'd been making throughout the territory to allow the people to weather the storm.

"…we managed to shore up and reinforce all the village halls, so I think most people will bed down there for the night. There's some good limestone over by Dinant village, so we made that into walls where we could. Oh, and Ducal's boy has just become a dot Earth mage, so I had him help me dig a trench around the lake. Should help if it floods. Everyone was keen to get back inside before the storm really hit, but it seemed to be coming on slower than expected. Was that your doing, dear?"

Karin smiled. "Maybe a little."

"Ha! I have the _best_ wife."

Louise preferred it this way to how it was normally. With the warm lights and pleasant conversation, you hardly noticed the storm outside. She turned her attention to what her older sister was saying.

Cattleya Yvette La Baume Le Blanc de la Fontaine worked as an independent researcher, not affiliated with any of the academies but occasionally commissioning expeditions from them. While she was an accomplished Earth mage – Triangle rank, at twenty – her first love was animals of all sorts. She'd recently been in the south of Gallia, exploring the mountains near the coast. Cattleya had always been a sickly child, with a weak body. She only rarely set foot outside the la Vallière territory, so she'd been quite excited to go on this one. At the moment she was happily telling her older sister about what she'd seen.

"-and it really is lovely this time of year," she was saying. "There are all these darling little villages dotted around the foothills, and of course the land is largely unspoiled – well, it's hard to really do anything with mountains unless you're at least a line Earth mage, and out there that's not all that common – anyway, it's still possible to see all these creatures in something very like their natural habitat. If you go up into the mountains proper there's even more to see, though of course it gets harder the higher you go, and we couldn't go _really_ deep into the glaciers because I got sick and we had to stop at this _gorgeous_ little coastal town, and Stefan and I used the time to take a trip on a whaleboat to look for scyllae-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Louise's father said. "Don't think you're sneaking that past me. Who's Stefan?"

Cattleya's eyes widened as she realised her mistake. "Um-" She looked to Louise for help.

There wasn't a lot that she could do, but for Cattleya she'd give it a shot. "Yeah, Stefan," she said confidently. "Works at the Oriz Magical Academy. You mentioned him before, Cattleya. Have you not come across him, Eléonore?"

Louise's oldest sister adjusted her glasses and glared suspiciously. "No… I don't usually have much to do with the Cryptozoology Department. What does that-"

"Oh, that's a shame," said Cattleya, clasping her hands over her breast. "He certainly knows about you – couldn't stop talking about this beautiful blonde water mage in the Practical Magic Department. He's water too, only line but he works hard, his father is the baron of some port somewhere. He was _ever_ so surprised when he realised we were sisters, I think he's rather taken with you." Their parents' eyes snapped over to Eléonore, who stuttered and flushed. Cattleya and Louise used the opportunity to slap hands under the table.

"Well," started the Duke de la Vallière. "I think you should make contact with this Stefan boy. He sounds like an adventurous lad, just the sort of young man we need around here. And compatible elements, too, marvellous."

It was a low-down trick, but it certainly worked to get her father's attention off Cattleya. Eléonore was twenty-three, and Louise's parents were of the opinion that it was high time she start thinking about settling down. Her job at the Oriz Magical Academy was all very well, but when it came down to it, she was the eldest daughter of the la Vallière family. Louise felt a little bad about throwing her to the wolves like this – but between Cattleya or her oldest sister, she'd pick Cattleya every time.

"Um- well, I-" Eléonore coughed, and tried again. "I shall certainly meet this Stefan, but only to turn him down. I'm afraid I can't return his attentions at this time. I'm entirely too busy with my work at the moment."

Karin raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you invite that young man back to the house for dinner just the other month? You seemed quite taken with him, as I recall. You certainly talked about nothing else for the entire week before and after his visit."

Eléonore flushed. "Thibault… is just a work colleague. It is a shame, as I had thought to allow him to court me – you would like him, papa, he's extremely accomplished and very clever, his work on diamonds is exemplary-"

"Well, why don't you invite him again? I'd be happy to have a sit down with him and discuss a potential arrangement," said Louise's father, stroking his beard.

"Ah, as to that… he does not return my interest."

"Why ever not?" asked Karin. "You are intelligent, beautiful, driven… is he already betrothed?"

Louise smiled wickedly, and went in for the kill. "It's because he thinks big sister hates him. She never actually told him she liked him or showed her soft side, so all her playing hard to get just made him nervous." She paused, remembering. "Also there was that time you got embarrassed when he accidentally drank out of your cup, and hit him with your whip. That probably didn't help."

It probably said something that no-one at the table considered this shocking information. Duke de la Vallière put his hand to his forehead. "Eléonore, I thought we were past this…"

Louise's sister glared at her. She looked slightly hurt, but mostly angry. "And how would _you_ know, Louise?"

"I asked him what he thought of you while he was here, of course. He seemed nice, just terrified. And confused as to why you suddenly started hating him just when you two had gotten to know each other. He says he knows where you got your nickname, now." Louise smiled, not noticing Cattleya's frantic gestures to stop.

Eléonore's voice was icy. "A nickname. How nice. And what is that, _dear_ sister?"

By now everyone at the table had seen where this was going apart from Louise. Cattleya had her hands over her mouth, while her mother watched with a steeled expression but said nothing. Karin usually stopped this sort of thing before it started but wasn't above giving her daughters more rope to hang themselves with. "I don't think this sort of talk is-" began the Duke.

"Your runic name is the Spring," said Louise, obliviously gleeful, "but apparently everyone at the Academy calls you Eléonore the Venom."

The table went quiet.

Eléonore stood up. "Is that so?" she said in a very restrained tone. "Well, better the Venom than the Zero. How is your magic coming along, Louise? Still nothing? I'm glad you enjoyed talking to my Academy colleagues so much – it's the closest you'll get to it, that's for sure. Or maybe you can get a job there as a maid, like a good little commoner-"

" _Enough."_ Karin didn't raise her voice, but it cracked like a whip through the room anyway. Too late. The damage was done.

With shaking hands, Louise pushed her chair away from the table. Eléonore winced. "Louise, I didn't mean-"

The littlest Vallière sister stalked from the room, her expression carefully controlled even as her eyes started to water. Once she was out of sight of the table, her family could hear her footsteps running down the hall, and the sobs she couldn't quite hold back.

* * *

Louise was so angry and upset that she didn't realise where she was heading until she was halfway out the door. She considered going to her room… but that was the first place her family would look for her. Instead, she threw her boots on and marched straight out the front door, heading for the old boat that was her usual hiding place whenever she wanted to sulk.

As soon as she was outside, the wind nearly knocked her over, and she could already feel the rain working its way through her cloak. Thunder rumbled, and she almost turned back – but no. She couldn't face any of them right now, not even Cattleya. When she'd composed herself, maybe. Yes, she'd go and have a good cry, sort herself out, and come back when she felt better. And if her family wondered where she'd gone, then good! They _should_ be worried about her, maybe it would show her sister not to bully her so much.

She knew she really shouldn't be going out in weather like this, but Louise was in enough of a huff that she forged ahead anyway. The grounds looked very different like this. Louise hadn't brought a lantern, and thanks to the rain she couldn't see more than a couple of dozen yards anyway. Trees swayed and bent in the wind, looking like arms reaching for her. A couple of branches blew across her path, then vanished into the dark.

Eventually, she made it to her little boat. It was rocking back and forth with the wind, and looked a little unsteady, but it was solidly beached. She'd been worried it might have blown away, or that the lake had flooded enough that it would float, but it was still there like it always was.

Louise climbed inside, and huddled in the bow. Or was it the stem? Maybe the stern? She didn't know about boats, she had people for that. She huddled in the end furthest out from the lake, and settled down for a good spell of feeling sorry for herself.

How dare Eleonore? How _dare_ she! Okay, Louise had been pretty bratty, but she was twelve years old, for Brimir's sake, she was allowed. Eléonore didn't have to take it so _personally_. And she _definitely_ didn't need to bring Louise's lack of magic into it. She knew that was always a sore spot!

For as long as she could remember, Louise had been looking forward to having magic. How could she not? Her father was always talking about how nobles had a responsibility to use the gifts God bestowed to help those around them. Her sisters had both quickly become incredible mages in their own right – as much as Eleonore intimidated Louise, she had a genuine talent with Water. Even Cattleya was impressive with Earth magic and alchemy, even if using it too much tired her body.

And then there was her mother – a _square_ mage, the elite of the elite. Karin didn't talk too much about her adventures as part of the Manticore Corps, but Louise had always known her mother was amazing. She couldn't wait to be amazing too.

It just… kept on not happening. Louise woke up every day expecting to feel different, but nothing ever changed. At first it was just frustrating, but nothing to worry about, and nobles did sometimes take longer to display magic. After a while, it became clear that something was wrong, and now, Louise just felt sick every time she was reminded of her failure.

 _I just want my magic_ , she thought to herself, squeezing her eyes shut. She clasped her hands in front of her and focused, just like in church. _Just like every other noble ever. Please, God, it's all I ever wanted, I swear I'd use it right and be a good noble and take care of everyone, I just – need – my – magic…_

There was no reply, of course. Louise didn't even try to stop the tears from falling.

Feeling foolish, feeling defeated, but also feeling kind of cold and wet, Louise stood up, head bowed, and made to climb out of the boat.

That was when the lightning struck.

The noise of it was like nothing Louise had ever experienced – thunder, happening right on top of you. Her world turned white, the lake and grounds cast in blinding silver. She felt the unbelievable power running rampant through her body, and knew that she was about to die. Eyes squeezed shut, Louise waited for the inevitable.

When she opened them, she was surely in heaven.

It was almost too bright to see – like emerging from a dark room into blazing sunshine. The light stabbed into Louise's eyes, but she refused to avert them. Ever so slowly, she was able to make out details of her surroundings.

All around Louise, the storm danced, weather unbound. As far as the eye could see, clouds boiled, shifting and clashing. Lightning crackled all around her, and the wind tossed her around like a child's toy. But where she'd been in darkness before, now everything was lit by golden flame. Louise hadn't known clouds could burn – but burn they did, and with such fervour that she almost had to shield her eyes. The heat given off was incredible, and yet it didn't feel uncomfortable.

And the noise, oh, the _noise_! Louise could hardly hear herself think. The thunder of the lightning strike that hit her carried on, and on, until it seemed to fill the whole world. The golden flames roared too, with a strangely musical sound.

High above, stars shone. No, not 'shone'. Not content to simply sit high off and twinkle, these _burned_ with the same intensity as everything else, each a source of illumination unto itself.

Down below, though, beneath the clouds, there was only darkness. It felt wrong, in this place of light and fury. An abyss, a _void_ of utter black, so deep it seemed it might swallow all light in the world. For now, the storm held it at bay.

A blast of wind caught Louise again, and she tumbled through the sky. If she had had any breath left she would have screamed – then all of a sudden she came to a halt, held aloft by furious winds.

A vast throne stood before her, extending upwards into the sky. Louise couldn't see the top, even by craning her neck up until it would go no further – but from the top there was a light brighter even than the stars above, illuminating this world like a sun. When Louise tore her eyes away, she had to blink spots away.

She found that she couldn't. The afterimage of that divine light remained, shifting in her vision even as her eyes watered from the strain. As she watched – had no choice _but_ to watch – it reshaped itself.

When it settled, an angel stood before her.

Its feet were lost in the clouds below, and its head was high enough over Louise's that she had to tilt it back. She couldn't tell how far away it was – it was vast in the same way that mountains were vast. From its back, ten wings extended, each long enough to touch the horizon. At its chest shone a brighter light in the shape of a golden key, hung around its neck. It was neither male nor female, but simply an outline made out of afterimages, and even those blinding to look upon. Nevertheless, it was detailed, aesthetically perfect.

 **WHO ARE YOU?** it asked, and Louise nearly screamed again. The angel's voice drowned out even the thunder of this realm, almost deafening in its majesty. It sounded like a choir of hundreds, of thousands – a choir where no two voices sang the same thing, but all came together in a harmonious whole. Each individual voice seemed only to be saying one thing: a name.

So lost in the angel's presence was she that Louise did not answer, but only trembled.

It leaned forward slightly. Louise got the impression it was frowning. **WHO ARE YOU?** it repeated.

It wanted her name? Was she to be called for her sins? No! She wasn't ready! She hadn't even received her magic – it wasn't fair to judge her, she _couldn't_ have done better! But the angel simply looked at her sternly. Louise opened her mouth to answer. "I'm just-" she began – but she didn't even hear herself speak. Her voice was drowned out by thunder and stolen by the wind, as if she had said nothing at all.

This was not the answer the angel had wanted, apparently. It pointed one glowing finger the size of a hill at Louise. **WHO ARE YOU?** it said again, and Louise knew it would be the last time.

She took a deep breath, feeling the electrical charge in the air. There was all the time in the world, she knew somehow. Time was not something this realm lacked.

Who was she? Her first thought was, _a Zero_. A failure, a noble who didn't even deserve the magic that was her birthright. Wasn't that why she had been denied it? She didn't know where she'd failed, or how, but at this time, in this place, in front of the angel it was obvious that she had. Had she been so obsessed with magical power that she had missed all the other ways she could serve her people and her Queen?

But… that didn't seem like all of the answer. Yes, she was a noble without magic – it was and always would be a huge part of who she was. But it wasn't _everything_. She was a daughter, and a sister – loved, and loving in turn (brattiness aside). She was a la Vallière, and had always comported herself as such. She was a keen rider, and she loved the horses in the stables, who never seemed to mind that she was a magical zero as long as she brought them apples. She was a weaver, although she wasn't quite sure if that counted as her creations never seemed to turn out quite right.

Yes, there was more to her than a simple lack of magic. More to her than just a void where wonder ought to be. She was herself – one of God's children, no more but _certainly_ no less. And if she had to say who she was? Well, there was only one answer that summed her up.

She took another deep breath, feeling electricity tingle through her body. When she exhaled, it was as storm. She looked up at the face of the angel.

" **I am Louise Fran** **ç** **oise LeBlanc de la Vallière!** " she cried, and though the thunder roared it roared in agreement not opposition.

The angel stood straight. Louise got the impression it was smiling. " **Louise Fran** **ç** **oise LeBlanc de la Vallière** ," it said, its voice now a mirror of her own. Louise wondered if the next person to come here would hear her name among the choir that made up the angel's voice.

The storm seemed to die down slightly, and the clouds overhead parted to reveal the stars above again. And above them, just barely visible, something else – something Louise wasn't even sure if she was really seeing and not imagining. She craned her neck to see better-

And was caught up in a bolt of lightning once more, and hurled back down to earth.

* * *

It was Cattleya who'd realised where Louise had gone, once they were sure she wasn't in the house, but Eléonore had volunteered to go and look for her. It was her fault after all. She shouldn't have lost her temper with Louise… even if she was being an absolute pill.

Water mages didn't have to worry about things like getting wet, so the rain kept its distance from Eléonore as she hurried towards the old boat on the side of the lake. Apparently, this was where Louise usually came to cry. Eléonore hadn't known. She probably should have. Cattleya knew, after all – and while Eléonore was aware that her two younger sisters were much closer to each other than they were to her, she was the oldest and it was her responsibility to look out for them. Great job she'd done of that tonight.

Lightning flashed – and thunder boomed right along with it. That had to be on the estate, it was so close! Eléonore picked up the pace.

When she reached the boat, she thought at first Cattleya had been mistaken – but then she saw a small shape huddled up near one end. She approached, and looked down at her little sister.

Jeez, she was small.

Eléonore called her name, shouting over the wind. "Louise? Louise, can you hear me?"

Louise stirred, and opened her eyes. "…big sister…?" she managed.

Oh, she was awake. Relief flooded through Eléonore, to be replaced quickly by anger. She seized Louise's cheeks in her hands and pulled on them. "You brat! Do you know how worried we've all been? You could have been hurt, or worse! Making us rush about looking for you, there's a limit to how selfish you can be! What if Cattleya hadn't figured out where you were? What if she'd decided to come out here looking for you herself?"

"Waah! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make you worry!" Louise wailed.

Hmph. Eléonore let go of Louise's cheeks, and inspected her sister. No obvious injuries, at least. She was pale, but not deathly so. Her fingers were cold, but not icy. "You're not hurt?" Eleonore asked. "Jeez, you're soaking. Let me get that for you…" She twirled her wand, and all the water on Louise's clothes and hair evaporated. Louise startled and half-flinched, then looked back at her older sister with a curious look in her eye. What on Earth was _that_ about? Was Louise really so scared of her older sister?

On impulse, Eléonore pulled Louise into a hug. As she did so, she realised she couldn't remember the last time she'd hugged her sister. When had it become so infrequent?

"Are you sure you're fine, Louise?" asked Eléonore.

"I… I'm fine, big sister, really I am. Just a little cold, that's all. And getting wet."

Oh, right. Eléonore realised she hadn't extended her umbrella spell to cover Louise. She flicked her wand, and the rain started curving around Louise, too. "Well. It's good that you're OK. I'm sorry, too, for upsetting you. I shouldn't have brought up your magic, there's some things even older sisters can't say. Even if you don't have magic, I'll still love you. You know that, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Come on, then, it's freezing out here." With that, Eléonore turned and started making her way back to the house. Louise followed. She seemed distracted, and kept looking at the rain where it changed course to avoid the pair. She refocused, and looked at her sister with that same intense look. "Hey, Eléonore…"

"What is it?"

"What does your magic look like to you?"

Eléonore tilted her head. "What does it _look_ like? It doesn't look like anything. I mean, you can see what it does, but you can't see the magic itself. Well, not for most spells, at any rate. Why are you asking something like that?"

"No reason." Louise hurried to keep pace with her sister, looking at the rain and, for some reason, Eléonore's wand. "No reason at all…"


	2. Chapter 2 - Revelation

Louise knocked on Éléonore's door, and waited. After a moment, her sister answered.

"Yes? Oh, Louise. What do you want?"

Louise looked her sister up and down, then took out a notebook and scribbled something down. "Acid-green sparkles… makes sense."

"Huh?"

"Thanks, big sister!" Louise skipped off down the hall, leaving Éléonore shaking her head behind her.

* * *

It was a sunny afternoon, the kind where any honest man should be out working his arse off. Duke Centurion de la Vallière was doing just that, and was standing in the rose garden with his sleeves rolled up pointing his wand at the wall of the Vallière mansion, getting ready to cast again. There was a small squeak behind him, and he turned to see his youngest daughter coming through the gate. She smiled and waved, looking even younger than her twelve years. "Good morning, papa! Cattleya said you were out here."

Duke de la Vallière paused in his spellcasting. "Hm? Oh, hi, Louise. Might not want to distract your papa at the moment, he's a bit busy-"

"Reinforcing the walls, yes," Louise said, settling down on a stone bench and peering at him intently. "I wondered what all the emerald I'd been seeing around the place was, but it's you, huh? Ochre, too, wouldn't have guessed that…" She got her notebook out and wrote something down. She looked back at her father, then back at her notebook. Then she put the notebook away.

There was a short and confused pause, while Louise's father raised an eyebrow and looked at her to see if she was about to elaborate. Eventually it became clear she wasn't about to. "Alrighty then!" Duke de la Vallière said, and waved his wand again. Seemingly nothing happened. Earth spells didn't tend to be flashy. Louise, however, 'ooh'ed and clapped her hands with delight.

Sometimes Centurion de la Vallière wondered if his youngest daughter was a bit strange. Well, as long as she was happy it was probably all good.

Louise got up and brushed her skirt off. "That was interesting! See you at dinner, papa."

"Glad you had fun, kiddo."

"Oh, and you missed a spot, papa."

The Duke sighed, and prepared for the task of checking and rechecking his work to see which bits he'd already done.

* * *

Louise made her way to the gatehouse standing over the river that ran through the la Vallière territory. It was a lovely day for a walk, spring just giving way to summer and a cool afternoon breeze taking the edge off the heat and bringing scents of wildflower and grass. Louise wasn't paying attention to any of that though, because her nose was buried in her notebook. She was pretty sure of her idea, now.

 _Cattleya – Rose quartz, pink sparkles floating sluggishly. Tricolour, muted._

 _Walls, possibly father? – Emerald, colours fixed._

 _Air, possibly Mother? – Steel-grey, intense colour._

 _Éléonore – Aquamarine, acid-green sparkles in hexagon pattern. Tricolour, intricate patterns._

 _Chef Anatole_ – _Sky blue,_ _very_ _muted colours. No sparkles!?_

 _Father – Emerald (as walls), ochre sparkles, perfectly still. Quad-colour, all shades of emerald._

 _Violette (maid Violette, not stables-Violette) – Very muted purple. No sparkles._

 _Myself – really bright pink/gold/orange. Tiny pink sparks from hair in constant torrent, v. rapid, surge upward. Plus sound (!) – thunder in constant roll. Slight smell of ozone. (Check other mages more carefully? May just be more obvious because is my own.)_

She'd managed to see all of her family now except Mother, and at this time of day she was usually off riding her manticore – to keep her hand in, she said. Louise wasn't sure why anyone would want to stick her hand in Mother's manticore, even if he was decidedly elderly and docile these days, but she hadn't dared to ask what Mother meant by it.

Still, it was enough to confirm her theory. She didn't know what this actually _meant_ , but it was nice to know what you were doing.

Louise stopped at the top of the hill, and looked down. The gatehouse was there, and more importantly, the drawbridge. The magical drawbridge that could raise and lower itself with a simple spell from the master of the house. It looked exactly as it always looked – wooden, sturdy, patches of moss on the underside where it hadn't been cleaned.

This would be the final test. If Louise was right, then she'd see… _something_. If not, then she was back at square one. She shut her eyes.

This little trick worked whether Louise's eyes were open or closed, but it was easier to make the transition without them. After all, eyes were a silly thing to try and _really_ see the world with, weren't they? All they were was, well, jelly and squishy bits and a hole in the middle. And they were just the bit in-between anyway. What saw the world was _you_.

People talked about eyes being the window to the soul, but if so they were a dirty, cracked, wobbly window where the glass hadn't been set quite right. Eyes lied to you all the time. So Louise ignored what her eyes were trying to tell her, and flung open the _true_ windows to her soul.

When she opened her eyes, the drawbridge shone a sparkling emerald in the light reflected off the river, and Louise grinned in triumph.

She hadn't been sure of what she was seeing at first, but after she'd started writing down what she as looking at when she saw various things, it was pretty obvious. Louise saw the world as it _really_ was – and when you got right down to it, what the world was made of was magic.

It wasn't quite the same as the burning heaven she'd been transported to in the storm, but it was closer than she'd ever seen before or since. Everything was illuminated, the colours standing out with almost painful vividness.

Objects Louise had seen a thousand times were made fascinating again, because they were slightly different from how they appeared when Louise wasn't properly looking. Her favourite sofa, for example, was a simple bottle-green thing, close enough to the fire to get just warm enough to curl up and read a book in. She'd fallen asleep on it more times than she could count.

In the _real_ world, the one Louise could see properly now, reflected firelight gave the sofa a pinkish glow that exactly matched Louise's hair. The way shadows fell on it gave the impression of an indent in the squashy cushions, as if someone – a small girl – was lying on it. Once or twice Louise could have sworn she'd seen words dancing under the leather as if someone had written all over it in luminous ink, although she'd never been able to tell if they said anything.

Magical objects, apparently, were _brightly_ illuminated. The drawbridge stood out in her vision, a thousand times more obvious than anything around it – apart from the old farmer wheeling his horse and cart across it.

Looking at living things was another matter altogether. Plants, animals and especially people were a blinding kaleidoscope – and while objects seemed illuminated, they were luminous. It didn't seem to react to their emotions or anything like that, but she could definitely tell whether someone was a mage or not, and roughly how powerful they were as well.

Louise wasn't sure if this was normal.

Certainly no-one had ever _talked_ about being able to see magical stuff. Once Louise had started to suspect what she was doing, however, it was obvious – how were you supposed to do magic if you couldn't see what you were doing? Probably _every_ mage could do what she was doing, and you just weren't supposed to talk about it to anyone who didn't also know. (Like that time when she'd found blood on her sheets one morning, and Cattleya had gently taken her aside and explained a few things that little girls and _especially_ boys weren't to know about.)

On the other hand… there were stories where heroic mages had bravely disguised themselves as commoners to sneak into some evil sorcerer's castle, and they wouldn't work at all if the evil sorcerer or his dread henchmen could just take one look at the heroes and go, "Hey, you're obviously a mage, have at you!" Maybe it was possible to disguise your aura? The stories didn't say anything about that, but maybe it was just implied.

The bigger problem was that Louise couldn't think of a reason _why_ no-one would talk about it. It just seemed like a big thing to leave out.

So, for now, Louise decided to just not mention the fact that she could see magic. If it was normal and people just kept quiet about it, she was doing just that. And it turned out that it was some weird quirk that only she had – well, that was fine, right? If anything, it would probably only make her better at magic!

…once she figured out how to use it, at any rate.

It was amazing and wonderful and all that, but for the moment, seeing magic was the _only_ thing Louise could do, and it bugged her. She wanted to get to the good stuff already!

Well, her parents had organised a tutor for her, and he would be coming next week. Louise wasn't arrogant or anything, but she expected be a _very_ quick study. Who else of his students could see magic, after all? This would be _easy._

* * *

"No, Miss Vallière, not like this – one more try, please. I show again…"

It should have been easy. That was what everyone said – once you realised that magic worked, you just _got it_. Like opening an eye you never knew you had, like moving an arm you never thought was there, like taking a breath you never needed before… like awakening from slumber into life.

"Come now, Miss Vallière, follow what I do. Feel the spark of Fire within you, and fan it into life, like so. I show again…"

Louise knew she was a mage now. She could see magic – clearer every day, it seemed like. She'd scrounged up a few introductory textbooks from the family library, and thought she was having a little luck with the first few exercises. (Stuff like holding butter in your hand and trying to make it melt as quickly as possible – it was interesting, but a bit messy.) She was on her way to being a mage, she was sure.

"No, no, no! Child, you cannot simply imagine a spell into existence! The Fire is part of you already, given form through your will. Your _will_ , Miss Vallière, not your wishes! I show again…"

 _So why was she still unable to cast anything?_

She sighed, and lifted her wand. "Candle," she said miserably. Nothing happened, especially not a small and steady flame from the end of her wand.

Maestro Rossi leaned back in his chair by the fireplace, and stroked his long grey moustache. "I do not understand," he said eventually, Romalian accent thick. He gazed at Louise through little beady black eyes, almost hidden by tufts of eyebrow. He looked like he was thinking about saying something to her, and Louise leaned forward in anticipation – but then he shook his head. "I show again," he said. Louise almost groaned aloud.

Tutors were a normal part of noble life. There were, of course, the academies – but not all families made use of them. Some wanted their children close at hand to help manage their estate, or because they feared assassination or hostage-taking. Some simply lived too far away for a journey to an academy to be feasible. For this reason, those mages particularly skilled in a certain element would offer their services as live-in tutors. Éléonore had been taught by one initially, before it was clear she could only be challenged by a proper formal education; Cattleya, however, had been taught directly by their father.

That might have been nice, Louise reflected. Papa was always so jolly and cheerful, his lessons would be great fun. But she wasn't an Earth mage. Neither was she Wind, and she had mixed feelings about that. It would have been exciting to follow in Mother's footsteps, and Louise couldn't wait to excel. But she had a feeling that Mother's training would be rather… rigorous.

No, one look at herself under the true sight made it obvious Louise was a Fire mage, what with how she fairly blazed with light and her hair gave off pink sparks like a bonfire. She wasn't disappointed at all – it seemed right, and at least it was something she could be better than either of her sisters in.

As it turned out, though, neither of Louise's parents had any Fire at all, and so they'd hired Maestro Rossi, an elderly Triangle mage from Romalia. He was nice enough, and had delighted Louise with a demonstration of fiery animals gambolling around her when they first met.

The problem was that he never _stopped_ demonstrating.

Maestro Rossi was apparently a big believer in the 'learn by watching' method. Every time Louise failed to produce a flame, he only ever had one thing to say.

Louise had rather liked the West Common Room, with its big warm fireplace and cosy sofas perfect for curling up in with a book. Now she almost dreaded coming here, and having to watch Maestro Rossi perform magic that was tantalisingly still out of reach.

But learning how to do magic was all she had ever dreamed of, and so she sat and calmly watched. In the _real_ world, Maestro Rossi glowed like a banked fire that had burned down to red-hot embers, the kind that would ignite any fresh kindling as soon as it was placed anywhere near. Auras didn't give off any actual heat that Louise could tell, but the _impression_ of heat that Maestro Rossi gave off was so strong she had to fight the urge to lean back and fan her face. Louise had expected all Fire mages to be loud and passionate, and their auras to be the same, but Maestro Rossi wasn't like that at all.

Louise watched. She knew how this went. A spark, a tiny mote of the immense heat within her tutor folded in on itself, and forced itself down his arm into his wand – which to her looked like a white-hot bar of glowing steel. Like she'd seen what seemed like a thousand times before, the spark seemed to refract and split, becoming ever more complex. It was like watching the intricate patterns simple water made when it froze to become snow… but more intentional somehow. Louise looked closer. If she could only see _how_ her tutor was controlling this…

She focused, and gasped. She could just barely make out runes made of flame, forming a word over and over and over-

Her tutor swished his wand, and said, "Candle." Fire flickered to life, and then vanished in a wisp of smoke. "You will try."

Louise blinked. She'd seen a lot more that time than she ever had before. Could this be the breakthrough she needed? Were the runes the key?

The aura that Louise associated with herself had always looked to her like a fire. So far, her efforts had been towards manifesting it in the 'real' world. But it wasn't that simple – she couldn't figure out how to transform it into being. Maybe, though, she needed to squeeze it through the runes first?

Closing her eyes, Louise reached for her magic, her aura, with her imagination. It folded and squeezed itself together – and stopped, as Louise realised she couldn't actually remember the runes in enough detail. Well, whatever. Instead, she just imagined the word 'candle', over and over, forming intricate chains made of pink light and the smell of smoke. She shut off her sight, and opened her eyes. When she thought her spell was ready, she lifted her wand, and _pushed_.

Nothing happened.

Bitter disappointment rose in Louise, and she blinked back tears. _Why_ couldn't she get this right?

"I'm sorry, Maestro Rossi," she said, forcing the words out. "I… can't do it." She lifted her gaze to meet her tutor's…

… and saw him smiling.

"Oh?" he said. "Your wand, he thinks you are wrong, Miss Vallière." He pointed. Louise looked at her wand, still outstretched, and gasped.

There was no flame – but the air around the wand shimmered with heat. It was one of the most beautiful things Louise had ever seen. She blinked, and looked through the heat to the magic beyond.

Spells, Louise had found, looked like the auras of their caster. Hers was no exception – the light bent through the heat haze was the exact shade of pink that her hair and eyes shared, and she could smell phantom smoke, even though there was no flame. Louise turned her wand this way and that, admiring her first spell.

Maestro Rossi reached out with his wand, and twirled it around Louise's as if gathering spiderwebs on a duster. The heat haze began to gather around his wand instead.

To Louise's sight, the ethereal colour of the spell started to shift, her own control of the spell gently taken from her. For a moment, Louise fought to retain control of her first piece of real magic. She felt like she could easily take it back… but in the end, she didn't. After all, she knew how to do it, now.

Her tutor nodded approvingly. "This is not Candle spell… but not so bad, no? Heat, light, these are also ours. Flame, he can come later. Many students find fire hard to work, at the start. Is no problem – I can teach." He flicked his wand upwards. The heat haze spread out and vanished, and the room temperature rose as if a second fire had been lit. "And heat is good too, yes? I am too old, and all, ah, draughts? All draughts cut like a rapier. When Fire mages get old, we find ourselves in a long, long duel with cold. Will you fight back with me, Miss Vallière?" He smiled, and it was every bit as warm as the hearth.

Louise beamed, and sat up straighter. "Yes, Maestro!"

* * *

While the roads around the Tristain Academy of Magic were usually quiet, now they fairly bustled with traffic. The first day of term was traditionally a day of learning, of hope, of the triumph of enlightenment. Aspiring students arrived from all over the country – from all over the continent, even – eager to start their journey of discovery. In front of the gates to the Academy, young mages milled around, mixing with their peers and upperclassmen alike.

Connections made here would last for years; rivalries made here could last for a lifetime.

Louise slowly dragged her luggage up through the gate, and wished she hadn't refused her family's offer of a handmaid to take with her. Her trunk was old, and sturdy and, she realised, actually quite heavy now that she actually had to take it anywhere. Had Éléonore filled it with rocks or something when she hadn't been looking?

It couldn't be helped, really – there weren't all that many girls of the right age in the Vallière estate to go with Louise to the Academy, and Cattleya needed the help much more. Besides, Louise had thought, it would be nice to really strike out on her own. She hadn't really thought about what she'd do once she arrived.

Louise looked over her shoulder, and could still see the carriage that had brought her trundling away into the distance. She watched it go for a moment, then set her jaw and carried on.

Lots of the other students did seem to have brought servants… most of them, in fact. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be done, and everyone would laugh at Louise for not realising. Louise the Mule, they'd call her, and the school would have to send a letter home about it, and Mother would be all disappointed, and-

No, no. Louise shook her head. There were at least a few others who were carrying their own luggage. That short blue-haired girl with the glasses, for instance… although she didn't have much, to be fair. There was also a blond boy going round and offering to carry the luggage of every girl that caught his eye. It would probably be quite gallant, if it weren't for the fact that he handed everything on to an increasingly worried-looking bronze golem.

It was tempting to take a look at the golem – really properly _look_ – but Louise decided not to. She needed to hand off her luggage to one of the Academy porters and find out where she'd be staying, after all.

"And as you enter into this place for learning, remember also that it is, mhm, incumbent upon you all to consider how you might put what you discover here into practice – in your daily lives, but also as part of the few with the responsibility for moulding the future of the society that will, mm, one day be yours…"

Headmaster Osmond may have been a highly respected magical theorist and an accomplished mage in his own right, but the man just did not have the gift for public speaking. There were about a hundred students in the Welcoming Assembly, and Louise guessed that only maybe ten were awake. Maybe the small blue-haired girl didn't count, though, since she was blatantly reading a book. Louise took a look at her, by instinct, and activated the first spell she'd ever learned.

Nothing big or flashy happened. No-one reacted, or even noticed. But inside Louise's head, the hall burst into a riot of light and fire.

Louise had been about twelve when she started being able to see the world how it really was – see the magic that lay behind all things. Its ebbs and flows, its moods, the people it answered to and the things they did with it – Louise could read it all like a book. Admittedly, it was a book written in some strange interpretive language, with rules that she still didn't understand entirely. But she'd worked hard, learned the cues and signs, and it was _amazing_ what you could tell about someone of you only bothered to look.

For example, the blue haired bookworm. Really _intense_ colours there, white and grey and a little sky blue as well. White sparkles – ah, no, not white, but transparent. Was that ice? Yes, little icy flakes, all dancing in an intricate pattern.

Well, that was actually quite interesting. A first year student who was Triangle level? And with a tricky specialisation, too – ice magic was hard, partly because destroying heat was much more difficult than making it. It took a precise and logical mind, the opposite to the passion of Fire… which Louise supposed explained the book the girl was reading. In any case, powerful. Probably she was the only Triangle in the class.

Louise scanned the crowd, the headmaster's speech long forgotten. Yes, most of the students were only Dot-level, with a couple of Lines here and there. Not unexpected – they were here to learn how to be mages, after all.

What was unexpected was the _second_ Triangle mage in the class – instantly obvious to Louise's senses by her smouldering aura filled with sparkles drawn in to it like moths to a flame, and a phantom scent of incense. For whatever reason, Louise's visions usually defaulted to analogies to fire and illumination, but you couldn't mistake real fire magic for anything else. This one was a Germanian, with the expected darker skin, and appropriately red hair given her element.

Strange. Not just anyone could be a Triangle level mage, it took dedication and hard work. Most of the _teachers_ here were only just at that level, and most of the rest weren't even that. And yet these two had managed it by the age of fifteen? Louise made a mental note to keep an eye on these two. The academy was about more than just learning magic, after all, it was about connecting with your peers. It was never too early to start thinking about who you wanted to be associated with.

So, two Triangles, a handful of Lines, a bunch of Dots… and Louise.

The headmaster was still going, and didn't show any signs of stopping soon. Louise sank a little lower in her seat and attempted to get comfortable. It wasn't easy. The bench was hard wood, old and fancy and designed to stop students from doing exactly what she was trying to do. It was cold, too – the door had been left open, and every so often a draught would come in and tickle Louise's thighs. Stupid scandalous uniform. She'd quite liked it when she'd first tried it on, but now that she had to spend any length of time in it she realised just inconvenient a skirt that short was. Her legs were freezing.

Fortunately, she was a mage and she could do something about that.

Louise cleared her mind, and focused on what she wanted to happen. There was no reason at all why she needed to be cold – not when the _real_ world, the one she could see when she _looked_ , was burning so brightly. All she had to do was bring _that_ world a little closer to _this_ one, make the world she experienced just a bit more like the world she knew existed just behind it.

Easier said than done, admittedly, but Louise had gotten the hang of it in the end (after a few false starts). It took a certain mindset, a refusal to accept the world as it was mixed with the purest clarity as to what you wanted to happen. It was the second part that was tricky, but Louise had done this before. She rubbed her thumb against her fingers as though to warm them up – a kind of habit that she associated with this spell. Louise breathed in, then out.

Her seat turned as warm as if it had been sitting next to a fireplace for hours, and the air above it felt like a warm bath. Louise sighed, and snuggled back into it. Heat _was_ good.

* * *

The Academy of Magic took an unusual and, some would say, overly-modern approach to teaching magic. Rather than the old master-apprentice model, in which each student was taught the particulars of their element alone, every student was first taught holistic elemental theory in their first year, along with the basics of summoning magic necessary to build up to the Springtime Summoning Ritual near the start of their second year. The second year had specialised classes on each of the elements, but all students were to attend each one, regardless of their own element. It was only in third year when the students focused entirely on their native element.

The reasons why this was so were anyone's guess. It could have been to promote a sense of equality among elements, to prevent rivalries from springing up between different elementally-aligned groups. It could have been due to the wide availability of specialist tutors for the individual elements, whereas the Academy was the gathering place for those with a deeper understanding of magic. Some said it was because the headmaster was interested in how the various elements combined, and had turned the student body into his experimental subjects.

Whatever the reason, though, students were not expected to excel at any of the elements in particular when they arrived.

This did not stop any of them from showing off.

"Look at this!" cried a fat lad, standing on the desk in the middle of the classroom. He screwed up his face in concentration, then stepped off the desk. He stayed in mid-air, bobbing up and down like a balloon. When he realised he wasn't falling, he looked around at everyone, beaming. The rest of the class didn't look impressed.

"Uh, so what, Malicorne? It's a levitation spell, big deal."

"Yeah," laughed someone. "The only thing special is how much weight it's carrying…"

Malicorne let out a squeak of outrage and lost his concentration, landing on the floor with a thud. There was scattered laughter and applause. Louise did neither.

"Indeed," proclaimed a good-looking blond boy. "Simple flight is nothing to take pride in. Why, who would wish to distance himself from the wondrous earth, when it gives us all that is good and beautiful in the world?" He flourished his wand. A bouquet of bronze roses appeared in its place, and he turned and presented one to each of the girls around him, who all cooed appreciatively.

"I, Guiche de Gramont, have already mastered the art of transmutation to this level – not for me base copper or rude tin, but instead their alloy, stronger and finer. It is," the boy lowered his voice to what he probably thought was a husky whisper, "as enduring as my loving heart."

Louise tried not to laugh. The roses were actually quite impressive; the pick-up lines were not. Or, well, she thought so, but a lot of the girls seemed to be eating it up, crowding around Guiche as he preened.

There were two, however, that noticeably didn't. The two Triangle mages that she'd spotted during the opening ceremony – the little blue-haired ice user and the red-haired Germanian. Both were sitting by themselves on opposite sides of the room. The ice user had her head stuck in a book, and besides pushing her glasses back up onto her nose wasn't moving. The redhead had her feet up on her desk, hands behind her head, and seemed to be ignoring the looks the boys in the class were sending her way.

Louise herself had picked a seat at the back of the classroom, where she could see every other student.

Any more showing off was interrupted by the arrival of the teacher, a matronly woman in a purple robe and hat who introduced herself as Ms Chevreuse. Louise, as was becoming a habit, analysed the structure of magic around the teacher. It was red, which would usually make Louise think fire, but this was a bit darker than that and felt a lot more solid – not rigid like stone, an almost malleable quality, but definitely denser than pure fire. Louise looked a little deeper, and found the answer. Triangle, earth-earth-fire, with a seeming specialty in transmutation.

"Miss de la Vallière?" Louise unfocused, to find Ms Chevreuse looking expectantly at her.

"Hmm?" Oh, right, the register. "Ah, present!" There was some laughter.

"Thank you, Miss Vallière, I can see that." More laughter. "In case you missed it, we're going round the room and saying our name, primary element, and an interesting fact – so please, if you would…?"

There was a general undercurrent of giggling. Louise stood, her face flushed but her posture upright and dignified. It was important to keep up appearances, after all, and also if she slouched the people at the back might not see her.

"My name is Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière," she started, and felt a little frisson of pride in the calculating expressions on the faces of the other students. "I'm a Fire mage, and I love reading and riding horses. I look forward to learning with you all." She curtseyed primly, then sat down.

There was some muttering. Louise thought she knew why. She was a la Vallière, her father was a Duke, and socially speaking she was probably one of the higher-ranked students in the whole school. She hadn't been paying attention during the register, admittedly, but she didn't recognise any of the others and doubted there were any secret princesses or anything among them.

That singled her out, immediately. If she wanted to put in the effort and played it right, she could spin that into lasting influence, or at least notoriety. If she played it _wrong_ … well, notoriety was better than nothing.

The fact that she wasn't a particularly powerful mage didn't mean much, in the long run. Political power was more than enough to make up for magical power, if used right… and it was well known that Duke de la Vallière was one of the mighty Square classes, so his youngest daughter may well not stay dot-level for long (with proper instruction, of course).

There weren't many people after Vallière in the register, so Louise was actually paying attention when Mrs. Chevreuse called out, "Miss Zerbst?" She gave a visible start, and only barely avoided openly staring at the girl who stood up.

It was the Triangle fire mage she'd noticed earlier. Now her tanned skin and red hair made sense – she was _clearly_ Germanian. Louise had just been more interested in her magic than her looks. The boys in the class clearly couldn't say the same, and one particularly brave (our just loutish) lad wolf-whistled.

The girl turned and winked, the scandalous hussy. Trust a von Zerbst to- to _whore_ herself around like some cheap whorey whore! Louise crossed her arms over her chest – not that it felt like much of a chest next to the von Zerbst girl's oversized udders – and scowled.

The Vallières and Zerbsts had controlled neighbouring duchies, on the borders of Tristain and Germania respectively, for centuries. They'd been feuding for almost as long, ever since a von Zerbst woman had seduced away an earl set to marry into the Vallière family – on the very day of the wedding! And they'd _then_ had the gall to claim that the earl had been so terrified of his bride-to-be that he'd simply jumped on any excuse to escape!

Ridiculous. Vallière women were strong-minded and independent, that was all. The fact that Éléonore had broken off her fifth engagement in a row proved nothing.

Anyway, Louise was bigger than all that (metaphorically, obviously), and wasn't going to let a stupid feud ruin her chance at a magical education. Ideally, she and this Zerbst girl would just ignore each other.

"My name is Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst," the Germanian was saying, "my three sizes are ninety-four, sixty-three and ninety five, and you fine young men can _all_ call me Kirche. With the runic name of the Ardent, I am a Fire mage – _Triangle_ class." She turned, and looked directly at Louise amidst the storm of whispering that had broken out.

Mrs. Chevreuse blinked. "Triangle? My, Miss von Zerbst, that is quite something! I am a Triangle myself, so I know how hard you must have worked… and at a third of my age, too…" she muttered.

"Oh, it was nothing really!" Kirche preened modestly. "With Fire, it's much less about the effort put in and much more about the _passion_. And that-" she posed artfully, tossing her hair over one shoulder, "is something that _no_ von Zerbst woman lacks."

"Well, jolly good!" cheered Mrs. Chevreuse. "Perhaps you would be willing to tutor some of our less experienced students?"

One more, Kirche locked eyes with Louise. "I'd be _happy_ to help my less fortunate classmates master Fire," she said in a sickly-sweet voice. "After all, not _everyone_ can be as lucky as me – why, they could have been raised in some repressive, prudish, backwards duchy that stifles all passion by putting them under the heel of overbearing shrews!"

"Hey!" squeaked Louise in outrage, shooting to her feet. The entire class turned to look at her. Now that she was up, she wasn't sure hey _what_ , but she couldn't let that one slide.

"Hm? What's that, _Miss Vallière_?" said Kirche. "I wasn't aware I was talking to you. Surely one so noble as yourself wouldn't need any help with her magic? Of course, if you're just seeking tips from the strongest student in the class-"

"You're not," Louise blurted.

Kirche's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Not what?"

"Not the strongest student," Louise went on. "There's at least two Squares in the upper years, for a start." They'd stood out like beacons to her sight – one carrying with her a crushing weight like the bottom of the ocean, and the other almost forcing her eyes closed against the phantom sandstorm he emanated.

"Ugh, fine, _obviously_ some of the older students will be a little more experienced, but-"

"And you're not the strongest student in this class either," Louise finished. It was close – very close – but the tiny blue-haired girl had a slight edge in power. Her magic was a bit more intense, a bit more vibrant, the sensations ever so slightly more vivid. "Honestly, there's no need to go around getting ahead of yourself just because you're a Triangle. It's impressive, I'll grant, but… did you think you were the only one who worked hard?"

Kirche bristled. "Is that a challenge?" Her hand reached inside her cloak – towards her belt, where her wand was likely kept. Louise's eyes widened, and she reached for her own-

And spluttered, spitting out the wad of clay that had somehow appeared there.

"That will be quite enough," said Mrs. Chevreuse, putting her wand away. "Whatever issue the two of you have with each other, you will settle it like the young ladies you are – which is to say, _diplomatically_ ," she added as Kirche opened her mouth. "Now. Both of you, sit down, behave, and pay attention."

Keeping their eyes on each other, both girls slowly sat.

 _So much_ _for not letting our family feud interfere with my schooling_ , Louise thought at herself angrily. All she had had to do was hold her tongue and let Kirche spout off some meaningless boasts, but noooo. Now she'd made an enemy of one of the most powerful students there – and whichever admirer decided to champion her cause. Bah. She didn't need this.

The rest of the lesson passed without incident, and Louise stood up when the bell rang. After stretching her aching legs out (why they'd decided to build the desks of stone, she had no idea – sure it was easier to shape than wood, all you needed was a mage, but it wasn't like the Academy was short on funds to hire carpenters) she headed for the hall outside.

No sooner had she passed through the door, navigating her way through the press of students leaving the class, when she heard a by-now familiar voice.

"Hey! You!"

Louise looked around for the speaker, and quickly found Kirche pushing her way through the crowd towards her. Confused, Louise looked behind her.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you, Vallière!" Kirche said. The students cleared the way, and Kirche stomped over to Louise, and pointed a finger at her dramatically. "I'm calling you out!"

"Huh?"

"A duel! You think you're stronger than me, huh? Well, let's see you prove it! I'll take you on, in a straight fight or any contest of magic you care to name!"

What? Louise had never said she was stronger than- oh dear. With Mrs. Chevreuse breaking up what she saw as the start of a fight, Louise had sort of forgotten to clarify that she hadn't meant that it was _her_ who was stronger than Kirche. She opened her mouth to say so…

"Hah, an uncultured Germanian like you against a de la Vallière? No contest."

"Show her what Tristain can do, Vallière!"

And shut it again with a grimace as the girls from her class started shouting encouragements. If she wanted to maintain any credibility at all with her peer group, she couldn't just back down from this now. Instead she was left with no choice but to fight the Fire mage with a grudge.

And Louise was… not Triangle level. Or Line level. Or, um, actually kind of not even Dot level.

Louise sighed inwardly. She'd just wanted to go to school, for Brimir's sake!


	3. Chapter 3 - Heresy

The Vallière library took up almost a quarter of the second floor of the house. Louise had always loved it in there, where the musty smell of old paper and the shadowy alcoves always made her feel like she was in some kind of mystery adventure. The library was large, and old – at least as far as private libraries went. Obviously the palace maintained a much more impressive collection, in which, so it was said, were held such items as the Founder's own prayer book, the Cytherian Scrolls (recovered from the elves, at great cost), and the original collection of tales about 'Honest' Jacques Argent, the highwayman and folk hero. Each of the academies also had their own collection, less valuable but more scholarly.

But still, the amount of books collected by the Vallière duchy over the years was considerable. They lined the walls from floor to ceiling – and the ceiling in the Vallières' main house was not low. For this reason, there were ladders that allowed a reader to reach the books on the top shelves. Or, if you were thirteen and still waiting for your growth spurt, the middle shelves… and the upper bottom shelves too.

Louise reached the floor, book in hand, and reflected on how unfair life was. Her mother and father were both tall, Éléonore too, so why wasn't she? Even Cattleya, although short for a woman, was still tall enough to rest her head on Louise's when they hugged – which was _nice_ , but it was still unfair. No, instead Louise seemed to have grown hardly at all since she was about ten.

One more way she was different from the rest of her family, she supposed.

Shaking her head to clear it, Louise placed the book on the large desk in the centre of the library, next to the twenty or so others she'd already retrieved. That would probably do to be getting on with.

There was a lamp on the desk – powered by old Fire magic, of course, no-one would risk an actual flame near all these books if they could help it – and Louise reached across to switch it on. It cast a clean yellow light, and would be perfect to read by… if the desk didn't come up to Louise's chest. Honestly, why was _everything_ in this house too large for her?

Really, she should take all these books to the solar, or the reading room, where large windows let in plenty of light to read by and there were proper reading desks which Louise could sit up on. On the other hand, Louise didn't want to carry all these books over there, and the armchairs here were much more comfortable.

Fortunately, Louise had a solution. She picked up the first book – _Magic, Willpower and the Mage_ – and snuggled herself into one of the alcoves. Then, she looked at the lamp and twitched her fingers. The surface of the desk went dark, and the alcove was illuminated. In between, motes of dust danced, as if in a sunbeam.

Louise smiled, and settled down to read.

That spell, the light-bending one, wasn't something that Louise had been taught by Maestro Rossi. She'd just come across it one morning, when a crack in her curtains had shone sunlight in her face when she was trying to have a lie in. She'd wanted the light to _go_ _away_ … and it had.

She hadn't had her wand with her at the time, either.

This was odd, because mages used wands to cast spells, everyone knew that. Louise was starting to suspect she might be doing magic all wrong, or at least very differently to how Maestro Rossi was teaching it.

For example, the candle spell was the basics of the basics, and any dot fire mage who could do _anything_ would be able to cast it – everyone knew that too. But, there was Louise, who just couldn't get the hang of it.

After almost six months of tutoring, Louise remained unable to produce even a single flame. Maestro Rossi insisted it would come in time – for a Fire mage, he was incredibly patient – but Louise had her doubts. To her, it didn't feel like a problem practice would solve. Instead, she was missing something basic and vital.

Or at least, looking at things a different way. Her tutor _had_ said her control was incredible for a just-started dot mage, and he was right – already she could boil a pan of water by simply raising its temperature until it bubbled, and make a candle burn so bright it illuminated the whole room. Usually that kind of fine control of light and heat was a mark of a mage on the verge of Line skill, but to Louise it came naturally.

Still, she couldn't just muddle through with intuition and self-experimentation forever, and so on Maestro Rossi's advice she'd decided to study up on various magical theories in the hopes that one of them might spark a flash of insight. So far, it wasn't working.

 _Magic, Willpower and the Mage_ was just repeating what Maestro Rossi had already told her, and insisted that focus and intent would get results with practice. _A Primer for Practical Magic_ was a bit dry and dusty, but said pretty much the same thing, and _From Dot to Line_ was a bit simplistic and focused more on exercises for a new mage. Well, she hadn't really thought the basic textbooks on magic would get her any further than her dedicated one-to-one tutor could.

None of the books mentioned being able to see magic directly, as Louise did. At most, there was vague mentions of 'feeling' what you were doing, but it was never elaborated on – the important thing, according to the authors, was to shape your will into the correct form of the spell, and then make it happen through sheer force of willpower.

The reason why one mage was more powerful than another wasn't that they were any more precise with forming their spells, it was that they had a clearer vision of _what the spell should look like_ , more willpower to go into making it happen, and they wasted less willpower through distraction.

Thus, if Louise's father wanted to, say, raise a pillar from the ground, it would take him far less energy than if a dot Earth mage were to do the same, and he'd be able to focus on more while he did it, and he'd have more energy to spare once he was done. His vision of what he wanted the earth to do was just that strong.

Louise wasn't entirely sure how the process of adding an extra element worked, though. Obviously she could _see_ that there was more involved – her mother and father both had quad-colour auras, while her sisters only had three – but just how a mage went about adding more, or why four was the limit, was a mystery to her.

In any case, she could relate to the idea of having a strong vision of what a spell was meant to do. Certainly she needed to do the same in order to cast what little magic she could. But clearly that wasn't all there was to it. Louise knew exactly what her Fire spells should look like, because not only had Maestro Rossi demonstrated it about a thousand times by this point, but she could see exactly how the magic moved within the old man and formed itself into Fire. She'd tried and _tried_ to copy it, but hadn't been able to. It wasn't like she could ask for help either, since saying 'I can't move the magic in my aura the same way you do' would only earn her blank looks.

Clearly another approach was needed. The next books she looked through, therefore, were a bit more speculative. Surely, _surely_ Louise couldn't be the first person in the history of Halkeginia who did magic a bit differently to other people, it was silly to even think so. What she needed to find, ideally, was someone else who'd had the same issue, and find out how they'd got past it.

Well into the afternoon, Louise continued to read, growing more and more frustrated. Finally, she closed _Peculiar Practitioners: Mages Who Bucked the Trend_ with a snap, and flounced across the room to put it back on the shelf.

Nothing, for all her efforts. It looked like every authority on magic was in agreement, and all of them said that her way of doing things shouldn't work. There were tales of mages who could do things others couldn't, plenty of them – but in almost every case it was either a powerful mage who'd invented a new spell that was difficult to replicate, or else some researcher experimenting with elemental combinations. Or both, in the case of Angus McCorrah, an Albionese wizard from a couple of centuries ago who'd been one of the few rare Square Mages with an elemental 'full set'.

Every case that _wasn't_ something like that was unconfirmed, vague, and probably apocryphal. Fairy tales, in other words.

Louise had looked through those too, looking for inspiration. It wasn't impossible that mages of her 'type' were just so rare that they entered the realm of folklore… but no luck there either. Oh, there were figures like Honest Jacques Argent, who used odd powers in every story he was in, but it was always something like cursing a tax collector with terrible bad luck until he gave bags of money to a beggar, an old woman and a sickly child (all of whom turned out to be Jacques in disguise). Storybook 'magic', nothing like what real mages did.

There were also all the stories about Brimir, obviously, but that was religion rather than fairy tales, and Brimir was using the Holy Void so of _course_ it wouldn't be quite the same as the other elements. Louise gave it a quick look through just in case, even though she knew the tales and parables off by heart. One part in particular caught her eye:

 _And though the Gandalfr did ready her blade Brimir smiled, and said, "Fear not! Though the King of Clay sends the earth itself against us I say to thee this is thy country, and never shall it harm thee,"_

 _And Brimir invoked the Holy Void, so that all magic was torn from the King of Clay's vast army_ , _leaving naught but statues where golems had once stood._

It was the closest Louise had seen to anything describing anyone manipulating magic directly… but it still didn't fit. Of course the Holy Void would be able to trump any lesser spell, when wielded in the hands of Founder Brimir. To even consider that Louise herself might be a Void mage was bordering on the blasphemous – and in any case Louise was pretty sure she was a Fire mage, if an odd broken sort of one.

No way around it – if you did magic, there was only one way to do it. Unless you were Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière, in which case you were on your own.

Well, fine. If that was how it was going to be, Louise was fine with that. She stood up and carefully put away all the books she'd read, then left the library and made her way to her room.

On her bedside table was the notebook she'd been working with to write down what people's magic and auras looked like under her true sight. Even with all her family and Maestro Rossi, it still only came to a couple of pages at the start. Louise drew a line under it, tapped her pen on the paper a couple of times, then started a new page. She divided into three columns:

 _What can I do?_

 _What can I see?_

 _What can I try?_

Even the ancient mages had started from somewhere, right? It would take trial and error, and a lot of work, but Louise was determined. She'd keep looking for clues as to how magic worked, how it _really_ worked. There had to be sources that weren't in the Vallière library, after all. And if she couldn't find any? Louise had gotten this far on her own, and she wasn't giving up now. She'd be a great mage like the rest of her family someday, even if she had to build a whole system of magic from the ground up.

* * *

"Right," Louise said, once everything had been set up and the chatter had died down. "Let's go over the rules again."

Across the courtyard, Kirche put a hand on her hip and cocked her head. "There's nothing wrong with _my_ memory, Vallière. Quit trying to stall for time and get on with it!" There were catcalls from the students gathered around the edges of the space. It might have been Louise's imagination, but there seemed to be more than there were when Kirche had first challenged her.

Although it was outside, and winter only just giving way to spring, the courtyard was warm and the grass soft. Fire and Earth magic, respectively – just like the rest of the Academy, magic was woven into the very stones here.

Louise held one hand up in a placating gesture. "I just want to make sure there are no misunderstandings. It would be very embarrassing for me if you were to wriggle out of your obligations under some technicality, after all."

The other girl raised an eyebrow, and Louise thought she saw the spark of a smile. "Oh? Arrogant, aren't you?"

"Not really," Louise said, but didn't elaborate.

"Hmph. Go on then."

"Very well." Louise went over the correct etiquette and form in her head for how something like this was announced. It probably didn't matter, not for what was basically a student scuffle, but better to learn now than later, right? "The event: a contest of magic between Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst, hereafter referred to as 'the challenger', and Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière, hereafter referred to as 'the challenged'. The challenged has the right to pick the nature of the event."

A good thing too. Louise was good, she knew that, but she'd need to play to her strengths against a Triangle mage. Fortunately, Kirche was exactly the best type of person for Louise to show off those strengths.

Not that she was obsessed with getting her classmates' recognition, or anything! She knew she was a mage, and that was enough for her… but a little bit of terrified awe couldn't hurt, could it? It was all in the name of making good connections, after all!

"Well?" Kirche prompted. "You've teased us long enough, Vallière – if I don't see some action soon I'm going to assume you're just not up to it… and I'll be _very_ disappointed."

Louise gave her opponent a look. Had she just…? Oh, never mind.

"The nature of the event: as this is a contest of Fire, each contestant shall take it in turns, starting with the challenger, to attempt to burn one of two identical objects, chosen by the challenged. The first to burn such object, here defined as reducing it wholly or partly to ashes, or otherwise destroying it such at it is rendered unusable, shall be declared the winner, and claim the agreed-upon prize – that is, one favour from the loser to the winner.

No magic is to be used on one's opponent. We're not supposed to be duelling, after all. And should anyone other than the contestants interfere in any way, the contest is void and neither of us is the victor."

Kirche grinned. "Hah. You may as well give up now, then. After I'm done with whatever it is you pick there won't be enough to fit in a matchbox. So what's it gonna be? A tree? A rock? A sword? Bring it on – my Fireball spell is hot enough to melt steel, easy peasy!"

Louise rummaged in her bag. "It'll be these," she said, holding up the items she'd selected.

Kirche stared. "Are… are you serious?"

"Very."

"That's paper! You're asking us to burn _paper_! I was doing that at four years old!"

Louise wiggled the sheets of paper she was holding, making a _fwapapap_ noise. "Does the challenger have a problem with the item chosen by the challenged? Does she feel it is in some way unfair?"

Kirche stared some more, then snorted and tossed her hair. "Yeah, unfair to you, maybe. I get to go first, right?"

"I thought you said there was nothing wrong with your memory?"

The disbelieving expression on her opponent's face gave Louise a little warm fuzzy feeling inside, and she giggled. She couldn't help it, really.

Kirche schooled her expression. "You cheeky little brat," she said, sounding almost impressed. "Well, fine. Don't come crying to me if I burn your piece to ashes along with mine, though, alright?"

"Should such an event occur, I will be sure not to come crying to you," Louise promised. She looked around at the students. Where was an Earth mage… ah, there. "You – Guiche de Gramont, wasn't it? Can we get a plinth or something to hold these sheets up? We wouldn't want to scorch the grass, after all."

The blond boy she'd pointed at blinked as Louise held the sheets of paper out towards him. "Uh… alright," he said, then rallied. "I mean, of course, Miss de la Vallière! Your dedication to the Academy you have made your home does you credit."

Louise rolled her eyes, but watched with interest as Guiche waved his wand. The earth surged upward, forming two pillars a couple of paces apart, each one trapping a sheet of paper in the top like a vice. The sheets fluttered in the wind, but remained upright. It was pretty good work, for something done on the fly.

"Does it matter which one I aim at?" said Kirche, as if suspecting a trick.

"Not at all. Feel free to inspect them if you like. I haven't secretly transmuted one to steel or anything if that's what you're asking."

"Eh, it wouldn't matter if you had. I'm just curious as to how it is you think you can win, is all."

Louise couldn't suppress a smirk. "Well, you'd better hurry up and start the contest then. We have homework to be getting on with after all." She put her hands behind her head.

"Ooh, you little – fine. Let's get this over with. Fireball!" Kirche suddenly whirled, drawing her wand and brandishing it at the pair of pillars in one smooth motion.

A blast of flame erupted from the end of her wand, so strong that Louise could feel her eyebrows singing even though she was nowhere near its path. This was what a Triangle Fire could do? Yikes. Louise was glad she hadn't intended to fight fairly.

The fireball flew at the pillars, fast as an arrow – and then disappeared as though it had never been.

"Huh?" said Kirche. Her face showed utter shock, and from a quick look at the gathered crowd she wasn't the only one.

"Oh dear," said Louise, a positively evil grin on her face. "That's not gone well, has it? Would you like another go?"

Kirche looked between Louise and the space where her fireball had vanished. "How… what did you do!?"

"Me?" said Louise, trying to sound shocked. "How could I have done anything? My wand isn't even in my hand!" She held her hands up front of her and wiggled her fingers to show the other girl.

The other girl's eyes narrowed. "You're up to something. I don't know what, I don't know how, but I know it. You're going to learn that- Fireball!"

Again the wand snapped to the side, again the blast of white-hot flame. To go from conversation to casting a spell of that strength instantly… Kirche really was impressive.

But Louise still wasn't taken by surprise. How could she be? She'd seen the buildup of blazing, blinding magic in Kirche plain as day, watched it flow down her arm and into her wand. As it came out, she saw the point where it stopped being magic and started being _Fire_ – and at that point, she grasped control of it with her own magic and _quenched_.

Louise couldn't create fire. Not a lick of flame, no matter how she tried. But her _control_ over it was unmatched. If she wanted to smother it, to choke it out and kill its heat so that it never even warmed the sheets of paper it was supposed to burn… well, that was what would happen.

The fireball disappeared just like the last, not even a burst of hot wind to mark its passage.

"Are you done?" said Louise. "So sad. I guess that's what happens when you try to cast using such a fleeting emotion as passion. Don't worry, the teachers here in Tristain will set you right."

A part of Louise was holding its hands over its mouth in horrified outrage at how, well, _nasty_ she was being. She remembered well how it felt to have every spell you try fail, and wouldn't wish the same on anyone, even a Zerbst. On the other hand, well, Kirche _did_ start it, and it wasn't like Louise was taking her magic off her forever, and she was only doing to uphold the good name of Tristain… and also it felt kinda nice to be able to show off for once.

But Louise saw the confused, shocked and kinda hurt expression on Kirche's face, and relented. There was also a familiar sense of rising tension in the air – an odd not-quite-electric tingle that meant Louise was pushing her luck. Better resolve this fast, in any case.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean that. I was just jealous. You're much stronger than I am, I admit it."

"What?"

"I think you misunderstood earlier. I never meant to say that I was stronger than you. I'm not." Louise sighed. "I'm actually really weak. Even if I can control fire, I can't create it. I hope I'll get better," oh God, how she hoped, "and I'm pretty good with heat and light, but for now I'm still only a dot mage."

The class accepted the lie with nods of sympathy, especially from those who were only dot themselves. Kirche blinked, confused.

"So, if you can't create fire, does that mean you give up?"

Louise smiled. "I never said _that_." She drew her wand from its holster at her hip. It was a simple thing, just a slender foot-long rod made of steel that her mother had given her as a going-away present. A reminder to stay strong, no matter what – the Rule of Steel that had carried Karin the Heavy Wind through countless battles.

But more than that, too. It was engraved with flowery patterns and tiny pictures of animals, with horses most prominent. Cattleya had done it herself, after taking one look at the plain metal wand a delighted Louise had shown her and declaring it 'not _nearly_ cute enough for my little sister, I don't know _what_ Mother was thinking…' She'd almost exhausted herself casting the engraving spell, but had waved away Louise's protests and forged on regardless.

Her wand was the most precious thing Louise had ever owned.

She pointed it at her piece of paper, and admired the play of sunlight along it. Then she focused beyond it, at the one specific point that was her target. Her hand moved, ever so slightly, and she said the word everyone else was expecting to hear.

"Ignite!"

A lance of pure _heat_ , no wider than a coin, speared the paper. The air rippled in between Louise's wand and the pillar – before she grasped that heat and redirected it into the sheet of paper too. One spot immediately began to smoulder – and then, as Louise maintained the heat in the same spot, burst into flame. Her classmates applauded politely as she lowered her wand.

Kirche pouted and huffed, but inclined her head in a gracious bow anyway. "Ugh, _fine_ ," she said. "I suppose you won, technically."

Apparently deciding that the fun was over, Louise's classmates started drifting out of the courtyard in ones and twos. Guiche de Gramont flicked his wand, returning the pillars he's conjured into the earth. For a moment it looked as though eh was going to say something, but he apparently thought better of it. Before long, Louise and Kirche were left in the courtyard alone together.

Louise nodded to Kirche, and made to leave. Before she could, though, the other girl called form behind her.

"Vallière, wait!" Louise turned. Kirche was regarding her with a serious-looking expression. "I have to know – how come my Fireball spell didn't work?"

"Oh, that? That's a secret." When Kirche raised an eyebrow, clearly unsatisfied, Louise sighed and went on. "I promise I didn't break any of the rules we set up, or have anyone counter your spell for me. I'll tell you that much at least. That's a Vallière promise, so you know it's good," Louise said. She tucked her wand away into her belt.

"Nah," said Kirche. "Nuh-uh. I know very well how to do a simple Fireball spell, and I know it's not so simple to just… just make it _go away_ like that. There's being good at controlling heat, and then there's that – and I don't believe for a second you can be _that_ good and still not be able to create fire."

"It's the truth," said Louise. "I really can't."

"I… look, I don't want to officially doubt your 'Vallière Promise', but I don't believe you. You did _something_. Was it a magic item of some kind? Something that puts out fires nearby? What?"

Louise winced. This was getting into dangerous territory. "I told you, it's a secret. Don't make me make you stop asking about this as your favour to me."

"Not good enough. If you interfered, that means you _cheated_ , and that means I don't owe you anything."

Damn. "Technically, it would only be cheating if I cast magic on _you_. I stopped your magic directly, so…"

Kirche looked almost impressed. "That's _sneaky_ … and we never actually forbade magic items either, come to think of it."

"Yes. So. Do I have to make you stop asking about this?"

The other girl grinned. "Yep."

Louise stamped her foot in frustration, she couldn't help it. "But _why?_ I already told you, I wouldn't tell!"

"Eh, I'm counting on being more persuasive than you are stubborn. That being the case, if I get out of it with a favour as easy as that, how can I refuse? Who knows _what_ you'd make me do otherwise? I know what you Tristainians are like behind closed doors, after all…" Kirche made a show of fanning herself.

"Ooh, you… you!" Louise said, fists balling. "Well, fine! I'll take that challenge too! As my favour, you're going to write a letter to your family, telling them how you lost in a contest of Fire to a Vallière. Feel free to ask me all you like about how I did it, because I'm never telling, never ever!"

Kirche had stopped grinning in a hurry. "Um, I… do I really have to? I mean, it was only a silly little challenge, no need to get our families involved…"

"Well, you should have thought of that before-" Louise stopped, breathing hard. It really _wouldn't_ be very nice of her to make Kirche lose face in front of her family like that. Even if she totally started it. "Oh, whatever then, I suppose it's not worth crushing you over something like this."

Kirche perked right back up, but it was obvious how relieved she was. "Awesome! And, uh, thanks, seriously."

"No problem," Louise said. "I guess, for my favour, maybe don't be so quick to jump to conclusions? I'm really not interested in competing with you, or putting you down, or anything like that."

"Well, when you put it like _that_ , I just feel unwanted. Don't you want to have even a _little_ rivalry?"

"I seriously don't." Louise considered for a moment, then said, "If you're interested, try the little blue-haired girl. Tabitha, or something? She's the only one in the class more powerful than you." She felt a little bad dropping Tabitha in Kirche's sights like that, but if she was a Triangle she'd be able to handle it. Or not. She didn't care _that_ much, as long as Kirche wasn't busy messing up her school life.

"Hm. And how would you know that? She doesn't seem the type to show off."

Damn it. Checking for people's magic had become so automatic to Louise that she often forgot other mages couldn't do it. She didn't have an explanation, so she just shrugged.

Kirche narrowed her eyes. "There's something odd about you, Vallière… I'll get to the bottom of it, mark my words!"

"Do you have to?"

"Well, what else am I going to do with my school year? I mean, the academic approach is good and all, but let's face it, it wasn't designed for Triangles. I really should have skipped a year, but my written Tristainian's a little rusty. I didn't want to jump straight into the more advanced stuff before getting a handle on the vocabulary, you know?" Kirche sighed. "All this entry-level stuff, though… it's not even been a day and I'm already bored."

Louise nodded. Thanks to her own independent studies trying to get a handle on her magic, she was very familiar with a lot of the material as well. She could only imagine what it must be like to be doing the same, in a different language, in a different culture.

"Would you like a hand with the Tristainian?" Louise asked, without thinking.

Kirche looked at her, shocked. Louise looked back, almost as surprised herself. Why had she said that?

For a moment it looked as though Kirche was going to refuse on principle, but eventually she said, "Sure. Actually, that'd be really helpful."

Fair enough, but Louise hadn't been expecting that. What was she going to do? She wasn't a teacher!

"I, ah, guess we can make it an evening thing?" she said, not sure why she was phrasing it as a question. "Meet up after dinner in the library, go through a few things?"

In response, Kirche snapped her fingers. "Ah, actually, that's no good, I'm meeting a guy after dinner."

"What?" Louise spluttered. "Who? Why?"

"Well, I actually don't know his name, just his room number. As for the why, when two hormonal teenagers bump into each other after the welcoming ceremony-"

"Okay!" Louise shouted, face as pink as her hair. "I don't need to hear anymore!"

Kirche laughed and stretched, revealing a hint of bare brown skin beneath her untucked shirt _before Louise very hurriedly wrenched her eyes upwards_. "Honestly, you Tristainians are such prudes. Anyway, I'm guessing that won't take more than half an hour, so I could come find you in your room after?"

Face now as red as _Kirche's_ hair, Louise opened her mouth and closed it a few times. Eventually she gave up on words, and turned on her heel and stormed off, leaving Kirche in the courtyard alone.

"Um," called Kirche. "So, is that a yes or a no?"


	4. Chapter 4 - Testament

"Come on."

"No."

"Come on."

"No."

"Come _on_."

"I said no, Zerbst."

"Come ooooooooon."

" _No!_ I'm not a performing seal!"

"Come on come on come on come on come on-"

"Fine!" Louise threw her pen to the desk and spun round in her chair to face Kirche, currently sprawled on Louise's bed in rather less than full dress. "I'll show you one more time _if_ you put some clothes on and stop slutting up my bed. And then after that you're doing your homework with me."

"Must I? The homework's so _boring_ , and you keep your room so _hot_ all the time…"

"Yes, you must! Now, or I won't show you again!"

Kirche pouted. She had a great pout, damn her, all doe eyes and big sad lips and an innocent hurt expression. Louise's will was steel, though, and she held firm. Eventually, Kirche was the one who gave up, heaving a great put-upon sigh that did very improper things to her bosom before sitting up and pulling on a silk dressing gown.

"Oh, you're no fun, Vallière. Anyone else would be happy to have me in their bed, you know. Why, just yesterday afternoon that cute little Gallian from second year told me-"

"Not! Interested!" snapped Louise, face pink. "Are you doing it, or not?"

"Tristainians, honestly… okay, okay." Kirche produced her wand, though Louise didn't think too hard about from where, and swished it in a languorous motion. "Candle!"

Fire burst from the end, in a bloom of ostentatious orange – less controlled than old Maestro Rossi's had been and wilder.

Much, much easier for Louise to reach in with her magic and seize control of.

She imagined runes in a cage around the flame, sealing it, trapping it – not in the world she saw but the _real_ world where flames danced without being bound to something as base as fuel. The flame on the end of Kirche's wand flickered for an instant, then burned a bright pink, the same shade as Louise's hair.

"Pretty…" breathed Kirche. "More, do more!"

"Alright, alright," Louise said, with less bite than she might have. Using magic – using _her_ magic – always calmed her down.

Using runes was how she'd started off manipulating flame. When she really focused on a spell, she sometimes got glimpses of the weird, ornate glyphs. They didn't have any translation in any language Louise had found in three years of research, but by imagining them while attempting to shape her magic she was able to use them as a kind of framework, a mental shorthand to copy that spell.

Some spells, anyway. All Fire, some Wind, but no Water or Earth spells she'd ever seen. And, of course, all the _weird_ stuff she'd found by experimenting.

The flame lengthened, growing from a simple flame into a stalk of fire three feet tall. Kirche watched, enraptured, as the column split into three and wound around itself as a glowing braid. Despite herself, a smile crept onto Louise's lips. It wasn't every day you impressed a Triangle mage in her chosen element.

The braid flowed into itself, then solidified. An instant later, it unravelled from the top, forming the shape of a tree, complete with shimmering heat-haze leaves. Louise focused, chewing her lip. A little more…

The trunk glowed white-hot, while the leaves deepened to a vibrant sunset orange. Kirche burst out in delighted laughter, and Louise allowed herself a grin as well. Magic was the _best_. Louise didn't usually feel the need to show off, even to her self-proclaimed 'rival' Kirche, but, well. It was just so _fun_. With a wink and a mischievous giggle, Louise pocketed her wand and seized control of the fire entirely. Then she gave a magical _wrench_.

With a _whoosh_ , the flame left Kirche's wand entirely, spiralling through the air to settle as a fist-sized orb above Louise's hand, like a tiny sun. The heat in the room rose, and rose, and rose until both girls were sweating – then rushed inwards, leaving the room cold as a cellar. Around the orb of flame, but entirely separate from it, a shell of heat a foot wide shimmered, visible only through the way it made the air run like water.

Louise looked at Kirche triumphantly.

Kirche opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally she said, "Um, Vallière… that's not possible."

Louise's magic _thrummed_. She felt it as a deep, dark clawing on the same level she felt her magic – like something was forcing its way in. She risked a look into the real world, and winced. Beneath the flame and heat and light, black cracks spread, infecting and corrupting and burrowing in to the clear bright world. Louise broke off with a gasp, and said in a panic, "Yes, yes it is, look at it, it's all real."

The other girl shook her head slowly. "No… no, that can't be real." Another _thrum_. "You've not even got your _wand_ , how that possibly be real!" _Thrum_. "I've seen square Fire mages who couldn't do that with heat – and you're barely dot level! _You can't do that!"_

And all of a sudden, Louise couldn't do that.

The orb _shattered,_ leaking flame like yolk from a smashed egg. A bonfire's worth of heat and fire oozed out the sides and onto the floor. Where the molten drops of pure heat touched the carpet, it began smouldering, then all of a sudden blazed up in a rush of fire.

Both girls shrieked, leaping back from the out-of-control blaze. The remnants of the orb hung in mid-air where Louise had left it, still pouring out liquid flame in a torrent.

"Stop it!" Kirche yelled, looking desperately at Louise. "Louise, make it stop!"

"I can't!" snapped Louise. "It's my own magic out of control, it won't listen to me any more!"

" _That doesn't make sense!_ "

Louise looked around frantically, then shoved past Kirche and grabbed a pillow off her bed. She set about the orb, beating it as though trying to smother a cooking fire. It didn't do anything but make the pillow begin to smoulder instead, so Louise tried a different approach. Using the pillow to shield her hands, and closing her eyes against the incredible heat, she _pushed_ , aiming for the open window of her room. It was hard, and seemed to be fighting back – like trying to win an arm-wrestle against yourself, except your other arm was on fire.

After a moment, two dark-skinned hands joined Louise's thin pale ones on the pillow, and together the two girls made headway against the orb. Right before the pillow burnt away entirely, the orb finally seemed to lose whatever force was keeping it in place, and it dropped out of the window like a stone.

Kirche frantically waved her wand to snuff out all the little fires the orb had started in Louise's soft furnishings, while Louise herself collapsed against the window frame, panting from the exertion and the heat.

Far below, the orb was merrily burning a hole in one of the lawns. A nearby gardener had noticed, and was running over, cursing. Louise hurriedly shut the window and drew the curtains.

"Phew," she said. "I think we might have got away with that."

Kirche opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, at a loss for words. Then she just started giggling helplessly. Louise flopped down on her bed and joined in, tiredly.

"I think I might need to send off to Father for money to replace the soft furnishings, though," she said. "It's a little embarrassing, but it's a noble's job to fix problems caused by magic, after all."

"Eh, I'm sure he'll understand," Kirche said. "Flaming the bed happens to the best of Fire mages sometimes."

"Did you ever?"

"Pff, as if. Who do you think I am?"

Louise laughed again. "Anyway, sorry you had to see that. That's what I get for showing off."

Kirche tilted her head. "Showing off?"

"Yeah. You know, the thing with the heat shell? I hadn't tried it before, and wanted to see if I could-"

"Louise," Kirche cut her off. "What are you talking about?"

Dammit. Louise really thought she'd have been past this by now.

"Never mind," she said, miserably. "Anyway, homework time. You promised."

"You want me to hold a pen like _this_? You're inhuman, Vallière…"

With only a minimal amount of protest, Kirche produced her notes from class, and the pair went through them. Louise's job was to correct the Tristainian grammar and spelling more than anything, because for all her flirty airhead act Kirche really did know her stuff when it came to magic. Now, though, Louise's mind wasn't on her work, but on what had just happened.

Her spell had gone out of control. It didn't happen very often, and almost never when she was alone, but for as long as Louise had been studying magic it had been an ever-present threat. Sometimes, almost without rhyme or reason, things would just… go wrong.

 _Almost_ without rhyme or reason. There were rules, albeit very woolly and vague ones.

First, flashy spells were way more likely to go wrong. Subtle things, like Louise's heat manipulation or control over sound, she was pretty safe with. Her magical vision spell had never once caused her any problems. Things like playing with light or fire were more… temperamental. However, even her less obvious spells caused problems if she actually drew attention to them, pushing her luck like she had with the heat shell.

If she was using her wand, however, she never experienced any problems at all. This made a sort of intuitive sense – there had to be some reason why everyone used wands, right? – except that other mages simply couldn't do magic without a wand. When she'd raised the issue with Maestro Rossi, she'd gotten some very strange looks indeed.

Which brought her onto the second rule, just as weird as the first.

Spells done in front of other people were more likely to go wrong. Louise had, very rarely, had a spell go out of control when practicing in private – but the vast majority of times things happened, it was when she was showing someone else a trick she'd learned. This had led to a number of embarrassing situations, including almost setting the dining room alight while trying to write her name in fire in mid-air, without moving the candle she was drawing the flame from.

Mother had starved the fire of air before it could even get close, of course, but that wasn't the point.

Louise had tried and tried to find a pattern as to what set her magic off when other people saw it. She'd persevered, stubbornly performing more and more complex spells in front of more and more people – and not just her family, either. A couple of the maids and serving girls had been more than happy to sit down and watch a dazzling demonstration of Louise's master of light. There had been no sense of rising tension, no strange feel to her magic.

When she was done, the girls had politely applauded, apparently not finding anything odd about the whole thing in the slightest. However, when Louise had done the same trick in front of Maestro Rossi, her fountain of sparkles had exploded into blinding white light that refused to die down for hours – and had done so immediately after the old Fire mage had expressed his disbelief at Louise's level of control over light while only a Dot mage.

Louise had no idea why this might be. She'd played with the idea of God punishing her for excess pride in her magic when it should only be used as necessary and not to impress others, and had taken to only casting very subdued and unobtrusive spells, and wearing rather more modest clothing than she was used to besides. Then she'd seen her father making a set of statues dance a gavotte outside Cattleya's window, and had decided it was a ludicrous idea.

The only commonality, it seemed, the only link, was _how likely the observer found it_ that Louise could perform that particular spell. For Louise's family, and Maestro Rossi, who knew her as a Dot mage only just starting to learn how to perform magic, any show of power or control above the norm was dangerous, and only got more dangerous the more of them there were to see. The serving girls, however, didn't really understand all that – and why would they? – and seemed to just have the belief that mages could do anything. Thus, it was easier to perform magic with unnatural levels of control around them – although not entirely safe.

Louise had hoped that moving away entirely and being around a new group of peers who didn't know what she could do would have helped. However, it wasn't that simple. Between her classmates, each of them had a pretty good expectation as to what was and wasn't possible for a girl Louise's age – even one descended from a royal line as the Vallières were. Kirche especially was already an expert at Fire magic – it was hardly surprising she wouldn't accept the stunts Louise pulled off.

Not that it kept her for asking for them, of course.

Worse, she never seemed to remember the result. This was another common point when Louise's magic went wrong – no-one seemed to remember it properly, rationalising it away as chance or some mistake made by a more powerful mage. Sometimes, they just misremembered events entirely, and any attempt by Louise to tell them the truth was seen as her exaggerating. For example, after the incident in the dining room, Mother had just sternly told Louise to better control her little flare-ups in future, as though it had been a little burst of fire and not a pillar of fire that had almost burned the house down. She apparently made no connection between it and the blackened, scorched food, either, instead instructing the wide-eyed head maid to reprimand the new chef when she got a chance.

(Louise had quietly gone and apologised to the chef for that – it was the right thing to do, and besides she'd gotten a cinnamon pastry out of him for her honesty.)

So, Kirche had some idea that Louise was incredibly good at controlling fire, heat, and light. And this was true. But she was also intensely curious about what exactly Louise had done to make her fireballs disappear on the day of their 'duel', and wouldn't quit bugging Louise to show her. And every time Louise actually showed her anything impressive, anything that might explain what she had done to Kirche's fire… the spell went out of control and she forgot again.

And then she would start bugging Louise again.

It was incredibly tiresome, and more than once Louise had considered just snapping and sending the annoying Germanian away. It wasn't like she was an especially important political contact that she had to make nice with – she was a Zerbst, for Brimir's sake, barely half a step above a commoner in the eyes of the Vallières. Actually, even that was pushing it, because at least the commoners generally worked hard and knew their place… or so Louise might have thought a month ago.

Now, she wasn't so sure. Annoying Kirche might be – okay, annoying Kirche absolutely was, gleefully and maliciously annoying, and a slutty big-breasted long-limbed wasp-waisted homewrecker into the bargain too, not that Louise was jealous or anything. But, well, Louise had sort of got used to having her around. Certainly she hadn't really connected with anyone else in the school. Oh, she was perfectly cordial to them, and _they_ were certainly polite and deferential to _her_ , as expected of minor nobility towards a Duke's daughter. But Kirche was the only one she could really call… friend.

Urgh.

Honestly, what was her magic's deal? If a von Zerbst and Vallière could call themselves friends, then clearly impossible was _nothing_.

* * *

The Vallière library took up almost a quarter of the second floor of the house… but the Academy of Magic was larger even than the Vallière's mansion, and the library took up an even larger proportion of its space. It was internationally famous for the breadth and depth of knowledge that could be found there.

So, Louise had reasoned, if she couldn't find any reference to mages who did magic as differently as she did in the Academy of Magic's library, then she could just go ahead and assume there basically weren't any to be found anywhere.

Where the family library was snug, and cosy, and perfect for a small girl to curl up in an armchair and forget about the world for hours on end, the school's was grand and bright, with stiff chairs set up at desks between row after row of stacks. There were private study rooms, in which a student could work all night if needs be in the peace and quiet only afforded by Wind-based silence spells; but these were invariably hogged by the older students, who liked nothing better than telling the younger years how easy they had it. How much work actually went on was debatable – suffice to say Kirche was rather more familiar with these secret cloisters than Louise was.

Everyone else was relegated to the desks – which, to be fair, were a perfectly adequate place to set down a stack of books and get things done. Each desk had its own Fire spell on it, so that the whole area remained well-lit but stayed cool – some would say 'void-damned freezing'. For the concentration of the students, the librarians said. Louise set down her selection of books and frowned.

Yeah, nope. Louise was a de la Vallière, damn it, and wasn't about to freeze her butt off just because some sadistic teacher ages ago had decided to screw over generations of students.

Louise looked at the spell, and began taking it apart. It wasn't as easy as snuffing out a fire – that was quick and instinctive, and Louise had had a lot of practice playing with forces like that. It wasn't quite the same as countering a spell before it was fully cast, either, although it was similar. Louise could quench any spell so long as she saw it being cast, not through any particular control of fire but just through trumping the spell with sheer force of, well, magic. To Louise it made perfect sense. Her will to _not_ have a spell cast was stronger than the other person's will to cast it.

She'd never dared try it on Mother, though. She thought the only thing scarier than trying to counter her mother's spells and _fail_ might be trying to counter her mother's spells and _succeed_.

This used her own magic as well, just… differently. Where a counterspell was a crushing, smothering force, this was more like unweaving a tangle of wool. (Louise liked this analogy. She'd had to unweave approximately 100 percent of her attempts at knitting, so she was quite good at it by now.)

Like all of her stupid magic, it came with restrictions and rules, none of which had been explained to her beforehand. It didn't work on everything, for instance. Like the spells she could copy by examining the runes, it worked on all Fire, most Wind, and hardly any Earth or Water. Still, this was one of the ones that was safe to perform in front of others as long as she didn't draw attention to it, so despite the quiet bustle of students she was able to make quick headway with pulling the heat-dissipating spell apart. Being able to just delete magic spells was extremely useful.

Case in point. The years-old spell unravelled, and Louise pulled in all the ambient heat to warm up her seat. Every student within a thirty-food radius shivered violently, and Louise smirked. Relaxing into her toasty chair, she opened the first of her books on 'alternative magic' and began reading.

After an hour, though, she was forced to admit defeat. The situation was no better than it had been in her own house – there was just a greater variety of fairy tales, myths and false leads to choose from. To be sure, some of these were fascinating to read.

There had been, for example, a heretical clergyman in East Germania – a minor noble and Earth mage of middling skill, with prowess in transmutation but otherwise unskilled in magic – who had claimed the power to raise the dead. Louise scanned his entry with particular interest, and gasped at the account of soldiers sent to arrest him, who had fought their way past decaying bodies and vengeful ghosts to get to the vile sorcerer himself. The article concluded that the man's necromancy was likely a product of the Ring of Andvari, an ancient relic known to have that power, rather than some innate magic all his own.

The article didn't, however, mention whether the Ring had been recovered or not. It seemed like a pretty important detail to leave out to Louise, but then she wasn't an editor.

Well, Louise had been expecting to have to build her magical skill up from scratch – this changed nothing. She'd come this far on her own, she would make do without a teacher.

A draught rolled across her, and Louise shivered. She'd been so engrossed in her reading she'd completely failed to notice the passage of time, and she hadn't cast her warmth spell to last. She'd need to redo it, probably – but she took a peek at how the spell was holding up, just to be sure. Behind her eyes, the world burst into comforting flame.

As always, the sleepy and silent room was transformed into a celestial hall of vibrant energy. Where the library was silent in the world everyone else saw, to Louise it was almost deafening – spell after spell clamouring for attention. Just as she'd thought, her own spell was fraying, nearing the end of its lifespan – but as she moved to repair it, something caught her eye.

On the table in front of her, clearly left by another student, a book _glowed_.

Louise was obviously no stranger to things glowing; pretty much everything magical did in the true world, including and especially the people. But this wasn't some dusty grimoire, this was – she checked, letting the magic fade from her eyes so she could read the words on the cover – just an academic text on spirits. She _looked_ again.

Yes, the book was certainly magical, there was no mistaking that glow. But… Louise frowned in sudden confusion. She couldn't decide what element it was.

Usually it was pretty easy to guess at someone or something's element – by colour, by metaphor, by general _feel_ , Louise had gotten pretty good at reading the little signs and she hadn't been wrong yet. Th aura of a jug enchanted to purify any liquid stored in it would ripple like a lake in a breeze and betraying its Water element. The lamps that gave light without heat nevertheless always felt warm to Louise thanks to their inner Fire. But this book didn't fit any of them.

The best way she could describe it was… inhuman. Yes, that was it. Not unnatural, not _alien_ like the cracks felt, but not human all the same. There was the feel of an _other_ intelligence behind this magic – as though the book wasn't entirely of the world Louise knew. She shut her magic vision off, and the feeling vanished; brought it back and it returned. Was this spirit magic?

No, she decided – because as far as she knew, spirits couldn't _write_.

In a perfect semicircle on the cover, stretching from one corner of the spine to the other, were runes. Unmistakably, they were the same kind she saw when she looked deep into the heart of a spell to decipher how it worked. Those were usually elegant loops and swirls, and for some reason Louise couldn't guess they all featured a single dot. These, though, were more jagged and zig-zaggy, as though scratched into the surface of reality by a clawed finger.

Louise had never found a single reference to the runes, anywhere. No dictionaries, no magic primers, no ancient texts, nothing.

She traced the half-circle with her finger, and turned the book over in her hands excitedly. To her surprise, the runes didn't extend onto the back – even though the pattern was clearly incomplete, some runes cut-off halfway. Curious.

There hadn't been anything like _this_ in her family's library. Louise hadn't seen anything like this _ever_. Just when she'd hit a dead end, just when she'd resigned herself to a life of self-study and no answers, a mystery fell right into her lap. Louise let her sight fade, and the real world faded, runes vanishing like a dream. The book proclaimed itself to be _A Primer on Spirits, these being the Essence of Magic beyond the Veil and past the Gauntlet…_

… _Volume II._

A tiny growl of frustration definitely didn't force its way through Louise's teeth, that would have been totally unladylike. She placed the book down on the table so gently that everyone in the room looked round and made 'shush'ing noises of appreciation, and studied the cover.

There was no suggestion of the semicircle visible in the real world. Instead, it was covered in illustrations of what Louise could only assume were mages, at least, about half of them had the traditional cloaks and wands. The other half… were those pointed ears?

Whether elf or human, each and every figure on the cover had their attention focused to one side – the spine of the book, where the semi-circle was. Or, putting it together…

She'd need to take a look at Volume I to be sure, but she very strongly suspected that the complete circle formed a spell. One of _her_ spells, the kind that no-one else could cast. Which, if you thought about it, meant that she was _meant_ to find this book. Not letting her have it would basically be rejecting her destiny. She couldn't exactly do her magical experiments in the library – but the library let you sign out books, obviously. With a satisfied smile, she picked the book up and marched off to the checkout desk with it.

* * *

"Restricted access?!" Louise said, outraged. The librarian had not shared Louise's opinion on her destiny, only looked at her sternly over horn-rimmed glasses.

"Absolutely not," she said. "Without a valid academic reason, I can't possibly sign out a book of this age and significance."

"Oh, well that's fine, because I actually-"

"That means a signed slip from a professor, Miss Vallière, detailing exactly why you need this _particular_ book – with the Headmaster's seal on it too. I know how easy it is for you kids to forge signatures. Quite frankly, I can't see any reason why a first year would need a book on such," she sniffed, " _paganist_ beliefs, anyway. The curriculum hasn't changed _that_ much since I was a girl."

Louise huffed, but knew when she was beaten.

"Well, how about the first Volume? Can we order-"

"No," the librarian said shortly. "Go on with you, girl."

Louise gave a prim curtsey, turned on her heel and strode from the library.

* * *

So, she hadn't left the library with the book. And worse, when she'd gone back the next evening to check for it again, it had been returned to its place in the restricted section. She hadn't dared to challenge the librarian again, so she hadn't been able to examine the book since she'd first seen it. Fortunately, since Louise was a noble, she'd been handling the setback with grace and aplomb.

"Stop sulking," Kirche said, leaning in close to mutter in Louise's ear. "Either do something about it or quit whining about it, but either way stop distracting me in class."

Louise snorted. Kirche was paying rapt attention to the lecture, even going so far as to take a seat in the front row, but not because she'd become a diligent student overnight, or even because she wanted to improve her Tristainian. Oh, no no no.

Resting her chin on her fingers, Kirche batted her eyelashes at Professor Colbert. To his credit, the man seemed unflappable, and responded in pretty much the same way as he had all Kirche's flirting for the last week, which was to say not at all. Instead, he forged on with his lecture on everyday use of magic, gesturing this way and that. It was a boring topic, but he was always so animated that he'd quickly become one of Louise's favourite teachers.

For different reasons to Kirche, of course.

Today, though, she couldn't keep her mind on the lesson. She needed that book. And Volume II, as well. She had a destiny, dammit.

Even better, she had a plan.


End file.
